Dramatic Moment Two Grizzlies in Wyoming Fight Over Food Caught on Camera

A man from Cody, Wyoming , has captured footage of two grizzlies fighting over food merely a few feet away from him.

Knewz.com has learned that the brief video shows a mother grizzly and her two cubs suddenly emerging from the forest , growling and grunting loudly.

The “mom” grizzly seemed to be holding a prey of some kind in her mouth, with one of her cubs relentlessly tugging at it to grab the prize.

After a brief struggle, the cub seemed to win, following which it made a swift getaway into the forest—the other two grizzlies closely following after him.

Wyoming resident Ryan Aune, owner of Wyoming Wings & Waters guide service, captured the video on Wednesday, July 24, as he was driving along the highway between Cub Creek and Lake Butte in Yellowstone National Park to meet a fishing client.

Aune stated that he often drives through the National Park and the sight of grizzlies alongside the road is not new to him.

When he spotted this little family fighting over food early morning on Wednesday, he decided to pull over and film them on his smartphone .

“It was like, ‘Oh, there’s bears, it looks like they’re playing. No, wait, they’re fighting over something,” Aune said about the grizzly sighting in a subsequent interview.

“All of the sudden, there comes momma grizzly out of the trees, straight at me,” he added.

Describing the growling and grunting of the grizzly trio around 15 feet away from him, Aune said, “I could feel the sound in my body. I could feel every bit of it.”

He added that he was driving his 2022 F-350 truck , which he described as a “very noticeable” vehicle. However, the bear family was seemingly so preoccupied with their domestic fight that they paid no attention to him.

“That’s what it’s like living in Wyoming. What you think is normal is insane to other people,” he further commented about the brief encounter.

Aune posted the 11-second video as a reel on Facebook under the Wyoming Wings & Waters handle on Wednesday, and within a day, the footage went viral. The video gained around 1.2 million views on Facebook by Thursday afternoon, July 25.

“It was funny. It was just a typical day at work for me. I had no idea it was going to blow up like that,” he said about the footage going viral .

While most of the comments he received on social media for the video were positive, he noted seeing some mean ones.

“Somebody commented something like, ‘Great filming, said no one, ever.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Sure, you try being right next to grizzlies fighting and not flinch,” he said in the interview.

Wyoming Game and Fish Large Carnivore Specialist Dan Thompson viewed the footage and stated that it was rather typical for grizzlies to be fighting over their last scrap of meal.

“It looks to me like they’re having a tussle over the last scrap of food at the table, and junior won … for now,” Thompson was quoted as saying.

However, Aune does not exactly know what the “prey” exactly was and said in the interview that it was probably a marmot, adding that he was “more focused on safety at that point.”

He mentioned in his interview with Cowboy State Daily that this encounter reminded him of another one he had back in 2019, although that was a lot more precarious than the recent one.

He was bird hunting along the Clarks Fork River with his father at the time of the incident.

“We had just gotten finished burying a great bird dog, and we were just trying to make a bummer of a day into a good day by going hunting in that dog’s honor,” Aune recounted. At one point along the river, his father suddenly yelled “Grizzly!”

Shortly after, a grizzly cub appeared before him and promptly left when Aune shouted at it. However, the real threat was yet to show itself.

“I turned to my left, and there was momma grizzly not about 10 feet from me,” he said in the interview.”I had nowhere to go, and I just started shooting.”

He was carrying a semi-automatic Beretta 12-gauge loaded with No. 6 birdshot, a weapon with not nearly enough firepower to shoot a grizzly bear down.

However, since the bear was at near point-blank range, he was able to land two shots on its chest and neck. As the grizzly attempted to charge at him on all fours, Aune managed to land a fatal shot that “went right through the skull” and killed it.

While he got away with his life, killing the bear weighed heavily on him. “It took me a while to get over that… I don’t wish that feeling on anyone. What you feel like when you have to kill something to save your own life,” he told Cowboy State Daily .

It is worth noting that shooting a grizzly bear in the Contiguous United States is illegal unless it is in self-defense. Aune was able to get out of the situation legally scot-free only after an investigation by game agents.