If you’re reading this as you have your breakfast, we sincerely hope that you don’t have to chase your eggs and toast around the kitchen before you get to eat it. Or, if you’re a vegan, we hope you weren’t chased around the kitchen by a carnivore first thing either.
Because in the wilderness, breakfast doesn’t just walk out of the refrigerator and into the skillet. No, in the wilderness you’ve got to work for your meals – or become one.
Or such is the lesson we gleaned from this remarkable piece of wildlife footage filmed in Banff National Park. The people who filmed it were approaching a bridge when they noticed an elk calf in distress on the water. A wolf had tracked it some distance, and maybe even gotten a few nips at it. But all the action had attracted a grizzly bear, who are more than happy to take a wolf’s quarry if its able.
So when the elk calf enters the river, it seems like a good idea; the wolf doesn’t want to get into the heavy current. But the bear doesn’t mind a little swim, so it gives chase in the water.
The only bad thing about this video, unfortunately, is that we don’t know how it ends. The people filming weren’t able to capture the resolution of this little puzzle.
But while we can’t be 100% sure about how it ends, we can guess with a reasonably degree of certainty that it doesn’t end well for the dear little elk.
But them’s the breaks in the wild; the hungry want to eat, and sometimes the innocent get eaten. If you don’t like it, come up with a better plan.
Watch the whole video below. And leave a comment if you’ve ever seen a menage-a-trois like this in the wild.