Yellowstone Park Grizzly Bear #791 Sept 2020

Been to another area? Post your photos here.

Moderators: teapot57, Tara

Post Reply
User avatar
Deb1741
Posts: 207
Joined: Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:48 pm
Gender?: Female
Please add the numbers(11): 11
Been thanked: 1 time

Yellowstone Park Grizzly Bear #791 Sept 2020

Post by Deb1741 »

Last Friday (9/18), a huge grizzly bear in Yellowstone Park killed a 6 point elk in the Yellowstone River at the north end of Hayden Valley. The elk had been injured in a prior fight with another bull elk and had injuries that included gore holes on his sides and a broken back leg. The grizzly bear was a 9 year old bear that was born in the Tetons in 2011 and was relocated to the area between Yellowstone's east entrance and Cody (North Fork Shoshone River) in 2014 due to killing cattle south of Grand Teton Park. He received his #791 at that time. In October 2018, he was captured southeast of West Thumb and received a collar, but lost that collar sometime this spring. In October 2019, he killed a 2-3 year old grizzly bear near the east entrance and consumed a large part of the bear.

He is huge and is estimated to be around 600 pounds. Three days before he killed the elk, he stole an entire bison that the Wapiti Lake Wolf Pack had killed a couple miles south and ate the entire bison. Soooooo, he wasn't too hungry when he got the elk back to the east bank of the Yellowstone River. For the next 6 days, he delighted many Yellowstone visitors that were afforded a fantastic viewing area 150 yards across the river. Lots of photographers on site, both amateur and professional.

My grandson Braeden has been working in Gardiner at the north entrance since the beginning of July, so has been able to go into the park most afternoon/evenings after he's done with work. He spent time at the carcass site Fri/Sat/Mon/Wed and again last night. 791 left the carcass Thursday morning and another grizzly bear started coming in.

Billings KTVQ2 did a news spot last night with a phone interview with Braeden along with some of his videos and still pics that I thought you might be interested in.
https://www.ktvq.com/news/montana-news/ ... 3blU_ziMEI

I did a day trip down to Yellowstone on Sunday and got this short video.
https://www.facebook.com/deb.roesler/vi ... 5140713814

Deb
"There is no snooze button on a cat that wants breakfast" ~ unknown
"Today is your day, your mountain is waiting, so get on your way" ~ Dr. Suess
indiana hiker
Posts: 161
Joined: Mon May 11, 2015 11:16 am
Gender?: Female
Please add the numbers(11): 11
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 3 times

Re: Yellowstone Park Grizzly Bear #791 Sept 2020

Post by indiana hiker »

What a great story for your grandson to share and great photos. Thank you for sharing.
User avatar
MISSY
Donator
Donator
Posts: 431
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:50 pm
Please add the numbers(11): 0
Location: College Station, Texas
Has thanked: 25 times
Been thanked: 2 times

Re: Yellowstone Park Grizzly Bear #791 Sept 2020

Post by MISSY »

Thanks for Sharing. Great viewing opportunity and video!
Selkie
2.1 Donator
2.1 Donator
Posts: 1321
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:17 pm
Gender?: Female
Please add the numbers(11): 11
Location: Chicago
Has thanked: 41 times
Been thanked: 9 times

Re: Yellowstone Park Grizzly Bear #791 Sept 2020

Post by Selkie »

Here is BE Judson's channel, with a 5-minute video of the kill, and more:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8MXpi ... zPQ/videos

Interesting to watch the grizz snoozing in the sun by the carcass in Deb1741's video.

I was there a week later, when a subadult grizz showed up at dusk to feast on the nicely decaying elk. Some trumpeter swans sailed by, all eyes riveted on the scene on the bank. :shock:
User avatar
Deb1741
Posts: 207
Joined: Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:48 pm
Gender?: Female
Please add the numbers(11): 11
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Yellowstone Park Grizzly Bear #791 Sept 2020

Post by Deb1741 »

The new grizzly bear that came to the elk carcass on Thursday was a newly re-collard bear. He is officially grizzly bear #881 and was first collared in 9/2016. He lost that collar in 2017. The Yellowstone Grizzly Project's website says he was born in 2003, so he is 17 years old. He's not as large as #791, but he's still a pretty good sized grizzly bear.

Braeden was at the site Thursday night and then again Friday night (9/25) and Saturday morning (9/26) at first light.

On Friday night, the new grizzly bear was back on the carcass and 791 was sighted in the area by other people. When my grandson got to the carcass site on Saturday, only the new bear was there. He sent me a message letting me know that 791 did come in and chased the collared bear off but other than that nothing exciting was happening.

The collared bear dragged what was left of the carcass (head, shoulders, front legs, and hide) up the bank and proceeded to bury it in dirt there. At that time, my grandson decided to walk back to his car to recharge some of his batteries. He sent me this message shortly after:

"UGHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I went back to car to change into hiking socks/keens and charge batteries for a bit because I forgot to last night and while I was in my car the other bear was out in the river wading around and the other one ran down and they fought in the water and were roaring and splashing and I didn't have my camera!"

Well, another photographer got film on the fight and posted it on YouTube last night.

The video is 10 minutes long. At the beginning of the video, the collared bear (#881) is burying the carcass at the top of the bank. At the 2:00 minute mark, #791 comes into view. He is walking through the shallow water looking for chunks of meat to eat (he finds some at the 6:10 minute mark and eats on it while sitting in the water). #791 continues to meander back and forth in the water and nears the shore at one point.

At the 4:00 minute mark, the collared bear comes running down into the water and a short, but intense fight breaks out. At the 5:10 minute mark, the collared bear charges back down to #791 and they have a very brief faceoff where they smell each other's breath and snarl at each other one more time.

At the 7:10 minute mark, #791 wades downriver through the water and eventually walks up on the bank and into the trees.

Dave Angelescu's video:
https://youtu.be/vDTI8yXCo8A

Deb
Last edited by Deb1741 on Sun Sep 27, 2020 8:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
"There is no snooze button on a cat that wants breakfast" ~ unknown
"Today is your day, your mountain is waiting, so get on your way" ~ Dr. Suess
User avatar
paul
Donator
Donator
Posts: 1696
Joined: Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:42 pm
Gender?: Male
Please add the numbers(11): 11
Location: MA
Has thanked: 61 times
Been thanked: 38 times

Re: Yellowstone Park Grizzly Bear #791 Sept 2020

Post by paul »

Wow, really interesting video. Thanks for posting!
We are in the mountains and the mountains are in us. - John Muir
Post Reply

Return to “Non-Glacier Photos”