Alberta, Canada is home to a plethora of wildlife, including moose, elk, bison, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, lynx, coyotes, wolves and wolverines, as listed by TravelAlberta.com. Not to be forgotten is the mighty grizzly, an apex predator no matter where it is found. If you're a hoofed animal living in grizzly territory, you've got plenty to be wary about.
As proof, this trail camera caught an adrenaline-pumping video depicting a herd of of wild horses frantically running away from something. A daunting three seconds after the horses leave the screen, another thick figure is seen running in the same direction. And after a few more moments, it becomes clear that it's a grizzly bear.
The video was posted on ViralHog by the Help Alberta Wildies Society (HAWS), an advocacy group that works to protect and preserve free roaming bands of wild horses in the Alberta foothills along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. They wanted to shed light on how wild horses are still susceptible to predation despite also being seen as dangerous animals. From the video's description:
May 26, 2022, a Grizzly bear with two cubs is seen chasing a band of Alberta Wild Horses. This event occurred in central Alberta, Canada, approx. 2 hours northwest of Calgary. These trail cameras are part of a large network of cameras collecting video data on the plight and mortality of Alberta's Wild Horses, from both natural causes and large predators. Help Alberta Wildies Society has been conducting this research since 2014, and uses the data to promote worldwide awareness about our threatened population of Wild Horses here in Alberta, Canada.
HAWS also posted the footage on Facebook, captioned with more specific details about the wild horses their trail cams have been following. It read, "The next time someone tells you that the Wild Horses have no natural predators, send them to me. We are losing a lot of horses this year, sooner and quicker than in past years. Not just the foals. Adults also. White Spirit's band was right in front of us today, and even though Serena and Middle mare have foaled, the only foal in the band is Malibu. Serena has lost her foal within 3 days of birthing, two years in a row. We picked her up on a camera today and she is in heat. We have picked up 8 different bears now on the cameras in the last few weeks."
Grizzly bears are a subspecies of brown bear and are actually omnivores most of the year. They are also scavengers and carnivores, and they can even be cannibals in opportunistic moments, sometimes snatching cubs from black bears. Grizzly bears have rarely attacked people, but it has happened before. Their attacks on humans are less predatory and more defensive, often triggered as a reaction to being startled. That fact, along with this latest video clip, justifies the importance of knowing what to do if you ever encounter one while exploring the wilderness.
