Bear-ing all: 24-hour, secret camera attached to grizzly bears captures just what they get up to in the Alaskan wild

By Daily Mail Reporter


Furry friends: Brown bears in Alaska were given collars with video cameras so that biologists could evaluate the population and study their mating habits

An innovative new project has allowed animal lovers to see life through the eyes of a brown bear.

Biologists at Alaska Fish and Game department came up with the method to monitor the creatures' habits. They put a collar with a camera on four brown bears, recording a 20-second clip, every 15 minutes for a month.

The wildlife experts attached the cameras in May last year to the grizzly bears - a lone sow, two sows with one cub each, and a ten-year-old male called Boar 6041 - in the Copper River Basin of south-central Alaska.

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Bear necessities: The collar was mounted with a camera and a GPS device so that the cub's travels could be followed

Scientists were left with around 12,000 segments to analyse and turned the footage into a compilation of one of the bear's best moments.

The purpose of the footage was to look into the effects of hunter harvest on the bear population as well as how many moose had been killed by the grizzlies.

The bears were not long out of hibernation when their habits were logged. The clips show one bear trampling through the Alaskan wilderness, feasting on fish carcasses by a lake and mating.

The largest bear, 700-pound Boar 6041 was even captured killing another bear and savaging newborn moose calves.


On the hunt: The researchers captured the brown bears interacting and foraging for food in Alaska

Call of the wild: The camera recorded a 20-second video clip (and audio) once every 15 minutes between May and June 2011 of the Alaskan brown bears

The creatures was also fitted with a GPS device so that biologists could plot a map of where the bears travelled to in the state. It revealed that the bears often back-tracked and revisited places where they left food or killed before.

State biologist Bruce Dale said the film offers some fascinating insights. He told Abc News: 'It’s surprising just how active they are... they are doing something with purpose.

'It was also surprising the lack of time spent foraging on vegetation, they are not spending a lot of time digging tubers and that sort of thing. Instead these bears are eating lots of meat this time of year.'


Following the pack: A lone sow, two sows with one cub each and ten-year-old Boar 6041 were tracked in May and June last year


Fishing trip: Almost 12,000 video clips were taken of the brown bear in total giving new insights into the life of bears





source:dailymail