These wolves have some serious courage.
Wildlife filmmaker Bertie Gregory recorded this awe-inspiring, first ever footage of a pack of three grey wolves attempting to take on a polar bear in the Canadian Arctic.
Gregory’s team was tracking wolves in Manitoba when they received information about a fearless pack harassing and hunting polar bears in the area. As luck would have it, the crew arrived just in time to witness the pack approaching a snoozing bear.
The team documented the hungry wolves circling the polar bear, cautiously gauging its reaction. The first minutes are intense; the bear does initially seem concerned about the approaching pack. Eventually, however, the bear realizes the pack of just three wolves is lacking in numbers — and it finally makes the move to chase them away.
The foolhardy but fascinating hunting attempt may have been an act of desperation; Because of the vastness of the arctic landscape, these wolves are known to search up to 1,000 square miles for a single meal. The bear could feed the pack for a week, explained Gregory.
Even so, it’s a risky attempt. “That’s a pretty bold move,” he said.
While a larger pack may indeed have been able to take down a polar bear, a small group like this doesn’t stand much of a chance. Polar bears are apex predators weighing up to 1,500 pounds, and can kill with a single swift bite to the skull.
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Encounters like this are extremely rare, and had never been documented until now. Generally, confrontations between bears and wolves have more to do with competition over a fresh kill or defending young rather than an attempt to make one another a meal.
Wolves in other regions, like Yellowstone National Park,
have been known to kill other species of bear — but usually only those that are very young, old, or weakened.
Watch what happened when a hungry grizzly bear showed up to crash a wolves’ dinner:
