Wildlife often ignore motion sensor tracking cameras, but sometimes they respond to these devices.
The accompanying video, filmed in late October and shared on Saturday, shows a grizzly bear frantically fighting a trail camera in Canada’s Yukon Territory.
Grizzly bears react to trail cameras.
“To be honest, I’m not sure what’s going on here most of the time, to be honest,” David Troup of the Yukon Wildlife Cams said on Facebook. “I’ve never seen a grizzly bear behave like this.”
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Troup explained that when the bear removed the camera’s rain cover, viewers could hear the sound of the Velcro detaching.
“He then clawed at the camera several times, but my method of attaching the camera to the tree proved to be superior,” Troup continued. “It then picked up the rain shield, seemed to ‘play’ with it, and slowly walked off into the night.” (Click here if the video player doesn’t appear below.)
One follower suggested: “Maybe the camera made some sort of ultrasound or clicking sound that disturbed him?”
Regarding the bear’s shaking head, one follower speculated: “I don’t think he likes the feel of Velcro on his mouth. I’ve seen cats react like that to Velcro when they try to bite it.”
Yukon Wildlife Cams shared other footage showing animals reacting to the cameras.
Coyote reacts to trail camera.
In 2002, one of Troup’s cameras captured footage of a coyote’s “animated reaction” to a camera hung in a tree.
Troup said coyotes are “known for being wary of trail cameras” and react generally to animals that respond to trail cameras: “Wild animals inevitably can detect special conditions in their environment through sight, sound or smell.”
The coyote footage is reminiscent of footage a researcher shared in 2023 showing wolves reacting to trail cameras in Yellowstone National Park.
This article was originally published in “For Victory: Grizzlies pose questions for trail cameras in Yukon wilderness”