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Grizzly Bear Chases After Herd Of Wild Horses In Remarkable Trail Camera Footage
What’s faster: a herd of wild horses or a hungry bear? If you’re to watch this video that was shared by the Help Alberta Wildies Society, the answer to that question isn’t exactly clear. The non-profit organization located in Albert, Canada advocates for protection of the area’s wild horses. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much they could do to protect this grouping of horses with a speedy grizzly bear in hot pursuit. In case you didn’t know, grizzly bears – though they […] The post Grizzly Bear Chases After Herd Of Wild Horses In Remarkable Trail Camera Footage first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
What’s faster: a herd of wild horses or a hungry bear?
If you’re to watch this video that was shared by the Help Alberta Wildies Society, the answer to that question isn’t exactly clear. The non-profit organization located in Albert, Canada advocates for protection of the area’s wild horses. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much they could do to protect this grouping of horses with a speedy grizzly bear in hot pursuit.
In case you didn’t know, grizzly bears – though they might look a little “chunky” – can run like the wind. They are the fastest of the eight bear species, and have been known to top out at a speed of 35 miles per hour. Believe it or not, that’s around the same speed that wild horses gallop along at, though their top speed typically pushes 40 to 45 miles per hour. It’s clear in the trail camera footage linked below that there wasn’t much of a difference in speed in this race for survival, and that the grizzly was slowly-but-surely closing in.
The trail camera set up in the Alberta wilderness caught this scary, high-speed chase just a few weeks ago. The clip first starts by showing the wild horse band – being comprised of about 16 adults along with three or four young foals mixed in – running through a tight path in the woods almost in a single file line. After they all go out of frame, a grizzly bear can be seen closely and scarily in hot pursuit… passing by the same camera and through the trail only seconds later.
It also appears that one foal towards the back of the pack stumbled over a stump that was slightly off the trail. It certainly looked like it hurt, and we’ll get to more on that foal and the other younger horses in a second. For now, here’s the video that Help Alberta Wildies Society (HAWS) shared of the high-stakes chase, and they also explained that they were just trying to get video of the lynx in the area (which they did) when their camera picked up footage of the horses fleeing from the grizzly:
“We used to be told by the Alberta Government, that the wild horses had ‘no natural predators.’ It was only through our citizen science and our trail cameras that we were able to prove otherwise.
Imagine how much we ‘would not know’ if we had not been collecting this date for the last decade. This camera is positioned to capture video of Lance the Lynx. There is no salt here. Bear chases happen where horses are. Not where salt blocks are.”
Pretty wild video, eh?
For those that like stories with happy endings, I’ll just let you believe that everything worked out in the end for that herd of wild horses. They ran just a smidge faster than the grizzly bear, and everyone lived happily ever after. How great, right? If you consider yourself one of those people that don’t like to read sad things, I’d go ahead and close out of this story and move on with your day.
Like don’t read past this line.
Because for the rest of you who decided to read on, I’ve got some horrible, no good, very bad news. That footage above is the last time that a little foal named Benji was seen alive on trail cameras. And just to be clear, Benji wasn’t the young whippersnapper that tripped over the stump. It was apparently a different foal that passed far too soon that day.
“A sharp eyed follower spotted Benji, in the long line of horses fleeing from the Grizzly. It is safe now to assume this is when we lost Benji.”
Damn you Mother Nature and your circle of life. Benji had a lot of life left to live, and now I’m tearing up on a Tuesday afternoon over a foal that I didn’t even know existed until a couple of hours ago.
RIP Benji.
