When a male grizzly bear approached a grizzly sow and its two cubs in Yellowstone National Park, tourists watching the encounter felt a battle brewing.
“When a lone male moves in to meet a female, as this one did, it can be super aggressive [and] confrontational,” Ron Sterbenz, who witnessed the unusual encounter, told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors. “I expected this one to be a fight or flight situation.”
But neither occurred. Sterbenz posted a lengthy video of the out-of-the-ordinary meeting:
“What happened was much different,” Sterbenz explained. “The female laid down with her cubs close by, and it was the cubs who first attacked the male. The female then went after the most aggressive cub not the male, until the cub moved away.”
Then it was a staring contest. Eventually, one cub playfully approached the male (who earlier spent more than a minute scratching its back, doing so before an unimpressed crowd).
“The unsure male didn’t move at all,” Sterbenz said. “The cub then casually moved away towards its sibling and it was the female’s turn to inspect the bear close up. Zero aggression at all from the male or female. Not at all what we expected.
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“We knew this could go bad very quickly, but…the aggressive grizzlies are anything but aggressive. I have never seen behavior like this from a male seeking a female and such an interaction with one of the cubs at the end.
“My guess is that it is young male, as he doesn’t look very stocky yet and perhaps not the meanest bear in the park; he looks too young to have fathered these two cubs as they are already 2-year-olds.”
Photo courtesy of Ron Sterbenz.