Grizzly with five cubs spotted at Yellowstone National Park, video shows. ‘What a find’

A nature photographer’s chance encounter with a family of grizzlies resulted in a rare video of a bear with five cubs at Yellowstone National Park.

“Seeing five cubs is insane. What a find,” read one comment on the YouTube video posted June 7 by Stan Mills.

“Seeing a grizzly with 5 cubs is (a) once in a lifetime event,” read another comment.

The video, which also includes images of elk and other animals at the national park, shows the bear and cubs in a meadow. It was recorded June 5, Mills said in the caption.

The mother bear stands up to see what is going on when she notices the photographer, then she and the cubs move away, the video shows.

“These grizzlies were walking toward the right when I came over a little mound and spotted them,” Mills said in a caption in the video. “The mother spotted me while I was getting my camera out.”

He noted that bear spray would have been “useless” because of high winds.

“Five cubs in a litter are the most we have ever observed in the park, at least from 1959 to present (the period of the park’s history we have good records for),” Linda Veress, a Yellowstone National Park spokesperson, told KKTV.

“In Yellowstone, the average litter size for grizzly bears is 2 cubs. Approximately 49% of cubs survive their first year,” Veress told the station. Officials don’t know whether some of the cubs in the video are adopted.

In 2023, 4.5 million people visited Yellowstone National Park, according to park rangers. The park covers 2.2 million acres in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.

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