Happy Family: Brown Bear Cubs Engage in a Salmon Tug-of-War as Watchful Mother Bear Observes

bear salmon nature
Twitter/@exploreorg

Remember when you were a kid and you just messed around all day and did whatever you wanted to (as long as your parents said it was okay)?

That’s the vibe I’m getting from these two bear cubs, though I’m not entirely sure that the mother bear would give their behavior a stamp of approval.

The bear siblings are running around the river bank literally playing tug-of-war with a large chunk of salmon. Maybe the mother is actually kind of proud of them because they are fighting for themselves?

Sibling rivalry is a real thing, so the cubs could be showing off in front of their mom to prove themselves. However, it seems to me like they are too busy having fun to be worried about competing with one another. They could both also just really want that fresh salmon too, which the mother probably caught in the first place.

In the clip, the two cubs are really going after it trying to rip the fish away from each other. One of them eventually comes away with the salmon and takes off in the opposite direction with the other cub in hot pursuit.

The two of them run through the shallow water of the river for a moment, before the cub with the salmon “jukes out” its sibling and makes a beeline for the river bank. Once its paws reach dry land, the cub starts climbing up the steep incline like a mad man with both its sibling and its mother following along closely behind.

The caption of the video that was posted to X (formerly Twitter) states:

“At the bank of the river, one of bear 901’s cubs steals a salmon scrap from their sibling. One cub chases the other back and forth in the river, and then all the way uphill as other bears look on.”

Bear 901, huh? Not as good of a nickname as “Shower Bear,” but still pretty cool I guess. Take a look:

Remember when you were a kid and you just messed around all day and did whatever you wanted to (as long as your parents said it was okay)?

That’s the vibe I’m getting from these two bear cubs, though I’m not entirely sure that the mother bear would give their behavior a stamp of approval.

The bear siblings are running around the river bank literally playing tug-of-war with a large chunk of salmon. Maybe the mother is actually kind of proud of them because they are fighting for themselves?

Sibling rivalry is a real thing, so the cubs could be showing off in front of their mom to prove themselves. However, it seems to me like they are too busy having fun to be worried about competing with one another. They could both also just really want that fresh salmon too, which the mother probably caught in the first place.

In the clip, the two cubs are really going after it trying to rip the fish away from each other. One of them eventually comes away with the salmon and takes off in the opposite direction with the other cub in hot pursuit.

The two of them run through the shallow water of the river for a moment, before the cub with the salmon “jukes out” its sibling and makes a beeline for the river bank. Once its paws reach dry land, the cub starts climbing up the steep incline like a mad man with both its sibling and its mother following along closely behind.