It is Springtime in Yellowstone National Park and wildlife photographers are waking early each morning to snap footage of the park’s famous animal residents as dawn breaks.
Wildlife photographer Trevor LaClair of Trekking with Trevor took an early morning drive in Yellowstone and captured adorable and once-in-a-lifetime footage of a wolf trying to entice a bear into abandoning a meal and playing.
Presumably, the wolf didn’t really want to play with the grizzly bear. LaClair wrote on Instagram that he believes the wolf was “play bowing and bouncing around” to get the bear to abandon the carcass it was eating so the wolf could swipe an easy meal.
Trevor LaClair writes that he “stopped at a nearby carcass that had a grizzly bear on it” and heard a “distant howl” when three wolves appeared. One wolf then descended the hill towards the bear.
The bear was in the frozen pond eating and lunged at the wolf who jumped back playfully. Then the wolf kept up the typical wolf pup (dog-like) behavior and tried to entice the bear into playing as if they were puppies. The video has since gone viral on Instagram and TikTok:
It is unclear what type of carcass the bear was eating that the wolf was trying to steal.
It is impossible to say for certain what the wolf was doing here. But given that we possess a large body of evidence on wolf behavior, it seems fair to call this ‘playing’ as wolves do with one another.
Since the Yellowstone grizzly bear was eating a carcass, it also seems logical that the wolf wanted that easy meal. But we simply cannot rule out that the wolf just wanted to hang out and play with the big furry bear…
WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW: