Watch Two Massive Brown Bears Brawl in British Columbia

Don’t mess with an angry brown bear. If you have any doubt about the ferocity of these bruins, this video will squash it. In late May, wildlife photographer Derek Yoder captured footage of two giant brown bears squaring off in British Columbia.

The video shows a brown bear boar charging at another bear. Both bears let out deep roars before immediately starting to fight, bellowing and grunting as they use tooth and talon to try to gain the advantage. One of the bears soon flips the other to the ground in a move reminiscent of an Olympic wrestler. He pins it there for a second before biting down on his opponent while thrashing his neck from side to side. The bout is fierce but relatively brief, lasting less than a minute.

“We were fortunate to witness [this] in British Columbia last week,” explained Yoder in the video description. This transient grizzly bear rolled up on the local dominant boar with his sow around. I imagine it was the last time he made that mistake.”

“Both bears walked away without injury after sorting out who was in charge,” he added. “I think the champ secretly had some training in jiu-jitsu.”

This isn’t the first time Yoder has captured an epic wildlife battle on camera. In 2022, Field & Stream reported on a video Yoder recorded showing two bull moose facing off while a bull elk looked on in Grand Teton National Park.

According to the National Park Service, brown bears and grizzly bears are common names for individuals of the same species. Typically, those that live in coastal areas, as shown in Yoder’s recent video, are considered brown bears, while grizzlies live inland. Brown bears can weigh up to 1,500 pounds, and boars are known to occasionally fight in territorial disputes and over good fishing spots.