The age-old tale of predator and prey played out in dramatic fashion Sunday, when a black bear in a full sprint chased down and killed a mule deer doe in full view of one of Yellowstone National Park’s busiest highways.
Cody residents Lauren and Cameron Newton were driving by and watched it happen.
They told Cowboy State Daily that it was a matter of having the incredible luck of being in just the right place at the right time.
The right time was 10:44 a.m.
“My husband Cameron (who was driving) pointed out the deer,” Lauren said.
“Then he said, ‘Oh, there’s a bear,’ and that’s when I started to take video,” she added.
She captured video of the bear displaying its speed, closing in on the deer, then brutally slamming it to the ground before sinking its teeth into the doe’s neck.
Lauren said she took video of the encounter on her cellphone, which made it appear that the predator-prey drama was farther away than it was.
It was perhaps only 200 feet from the roadside, Cameron said.
The Newtons didn’t stick around because they didn’t want to start a bear jam on the pass.
“Sylvan Pass isn’t a good place to stop and jam up traffic,” Lauren said.
Social media posts indicate that other people later saw the bear eating the deer’s carcass, Cameron said.
Attacks On Deer Rare, But They Happen
The Newtons said that upon closer examination of the video, the deer apparently already had a serious injury to its left front leg.
“In the video, you can see that leg sort of flopping around,” Cameron said.
Other park visitors said they previously spotted a mule deer doe with an injured leg in the same area, he said. They surmised that the deer might have been clipped by a vehicle on the highway.
A bear expert told Cowboy State Daily that it’s rare for black bears to chase down big game animals, but it does happen.
“Black bears can take down deer, absolutely,” said Kim Titchener, founder of the Bear Safety and More organization based in Alberta, Canada.
Though black bears’ diet is mostly plant-based, they’re clever opportunists, she said. They may look round and chubby, but can be deceptively fast.
And if the doe was, in fact, injured, then it is likely that the bear saw a chance at a hearty meal and went for it, Titchener said.
“It’s obviously an ‘opportunity-knocks’ situation,” she said.
Titchener, who works to reduce human-bear conflicts, added that the Newtons did the right thing by moving along rather than stopping to gawk at the scene.
Black bears typically aren’t as aggressively defensive of their food as grizzlies can be, she said. But they can still be dangerous if people close in and make them feel pressured when they’re trying to eat.
How Do You Top That?
The Newtons like to visit Yellowstone whenever they can. While the park always has something interesting to offer, it might be impossible to top the experience of watching a bear chase down a deer.
“We’ve seen a lot of cool stuff in Yellowstone, but nothing quite like that,” Cameron said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
