| 1 | Places where they overlap |
Unlike the endlessly debated gorilla-bear battle, interactions between bears and wolves have been witnessed thousands of times in the wild. If mankind had never existed, then wolves and bears would nearly always coexist, as their natural habitats are nearly identical – cool northern hemisphere regions, preferably with loads of elk.
In Alaska and Canada, for example, grizzly bears live alongside the grey wolf species. Yellowstone had a 70 year blip starting in 1925 where wolves were regionally extinct, but after a reintroduction, the two now live side by side once again.
Over in Siberia, there are tens of thousands brown bears belonging to both the Eurasian and East Siberian (notoriously aggressive) subspecies. These coexist with tundra wolves, grey wolves, steppe wolves, shy forest wolves, and many more.
Today, Japan is only home to bears, in the form of the Ussuri brown bear subspecies. But Japan once hosted two species of wolf which lived alongside them, the Honshu wolf and Hokkaido wolf, before both were hunted to extinction (although strange rumours persist of howling in the woods of Hokkaido). Moving westwards, the Himalayan wolf co-exists with the Tibetan blue bear and the Himalayan brown bear. In eastern Europe, the Eurasian brown bear lives side by side with grey wolf subspecies, in the areas where it survives. Bears and wolves are tundra buddies across the whole world.
| 2 | Do they eat each other? |
Being intelligent animals, most brown bears and wolves don’t even attempt to prey on each other. Having evolved side by side, and both being savage predators, the high risk factor of attacking each other has long been programmed into their brains.
Cubs are another story though. In 2001, biologists discovered the carcass of a bear cub in Hayden Valley in Yellowstone park, which had been dead for 3-5 days. Its body was covered with incisor-like canine teeth marks, and its skull was crushed, showing that a large predator dealt the fatal finishing blow. Most tellingly, the nearby soil was covered with bear and wolf pawprints. The nearest climbable tree was 111 meters away, and the nearest forest was 397 metres away – the bear cub had been isolated and picked off.
In 2006, Betsy Downey wrote about a pack of 7 Yellowstone wolves, who had managed to confuse a grizzly mother enough to steal one of her 3 cubs. Downey missed the gruesome killing, but arrived as “the wolves disappeared over a ridge with tails held high”.
Occasionally, wolves go to a real extreme and slip inside a mother grizzly’s den to steal cubs. The opposite – a grizzly stealing wolf cubs – is even rarer, because wolf packs tend to be more protective and better coordinated.
| 3 | Who would win a straight fight? |
In a one on one battle, there’s no question. A male grizzly bear averages at 600 pounds in weight, while a male grey wolf averages at 100 pounds. The grizzly would swipe the wolf and send him flying into the far horizon.
But as everyone knows, wolves travel in packs that can be 12 strong, whereas grizzlies are solitary animals, with the exception of a mother and her cubs. Wolves are extremely well-coordinated, and worse, they never give up. A Yellowstone director even saw a wolf dash around and “bite a bear in the butt” one time.
The wolf’s main advantage is its higher speeds and superior endurance. It can be difficult for a grizzly to get a single blow in, but if it does, then the wolf is finished. The bears forelimbs, powered by its unique muscular hump, are unrivalled in strength by any other animal. Conversely, a wolf’s strong jaws would make little to no progress against the bear’s thick layers of fat, no matter how well coordinated they are. Wolves are much less skilled than tigers at making a leap for the jugular vein.
The usual scenario is that bears are attracted to wolf dens by the “stank” aroma of wolf kills. The pack appears and the bear takes swipes, before getting so annoyed by the biting and circling that he just leaves, like trying to scoop out honey in the midst of a swarm of bees.
| 4 | The battle for Nanuk’s hill |
One classic clash between the bear and wolf kingdoms was witnessed on April 1st 2008, by photographer Peter Denlin in Banff National park. A bear was feasting on an elk carcass at the summit of the hill, but the straggly morsels of meat were nothing worth fighting over.
Instead, it started with Nanuk the alpha wolf’s concern over the pregnant Delinda, the top pack female. At first, he approached alone, staring the grizzly down in the snowy clearing. The bear simply sat on his back side to protect his rear. Then Lakota arrived, the oldest male son, followed by Sundance and Silvertip. Now the bear was worried. The 600 pound grizzly stood on his hind legs and smashed his paws down to the snowy earth to demonstrate his immense bear strength. This had moved into a territorial dispute now, with a piece of fur as the stake claim.
For 4 days, the animals didn’t lay a hand on each other, returning at sunrise to “battle” solely in the form of posturing. The 600 pound grizzly would hold his ground, while the wolves would bark and circle him in classic pack formation, less than 1 metre from contact.
At one point, Nanuk and Bear were almost nose to nose, eye to eye, but then Bear did the unthinkable: he picked up the hide in his mouth and shook it. This was a massive insult to Nanuk, and now, the pack chased the grizzly around the snowy enclosure. This lasted for 30 minutes, with bites and swipes flying, but neither side suffered serious injury. The bear began chewing a bone and Nanuk sat down 20 metres away. The next day, Denlin returned to find both the bear and wolves leaving the hill. The 4 day battle was over. Rather than pointless injuries, the top priority for both animals was clearly staying alive.
| 5 | Wolf-bear friendship in Finland |
The relationship isn’t always about war though. In 2013, the internet almost exploded when Lassi Rautiainen took photographs of a female grey wolf and a male brown bear travelling together. They spent 10 days in each other’s company, hunting prey, and even playing together. Epic photos were taken of wolf and bear side by side, gazing in the same direction, united in purpose. Others showed them charging through the woods and splashing in a puddle of water.
They even shared dinner with each other in the evenings, enjoying a deer carcass as the sun set. This friendship took place in the remote forests of northern Finland, in grassy meadows interspersed with the occasional thin tree. Supposedly, they spent 8 hours with each other from 8pm to 4am without fail.
How and why the duo became friends is unexplained, but one theory is that they were a young bear and wolf who lacked experience and felt secure in each other’s company. People feared that the Walt Disney Corporation was starting to bleed into real life, but others welcomed it. Other commenters called it the final proof that humans beings can live together too. Photographer Lassi said “I came across these two and knew that it made the perfect story”.
| 6 | Japanese robot wolves |
Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido has been terrorised by brown bears in recent years, with Japan having 13,670 bear sightings in 2020 alone. In September 2020, local people rang up government offices near the city of Takikawa to say that a bear was visible “from their window”. People were injured , and scores of innocent bears were shot dead.
Thankfully, the Tokyo University of Agriculture had a solution – fake wolves which scare people on command. By November 5th, 62 monster robot wolves were installed from Hokkaido to Okinawa in southern Japan, where wild boars and deer were the target. The bodies are 120cm long, with a height of 90cm. Each scarecrow wolf is equipped with a high tech motion sensor, and when activated, the metallic beast lets out a roar, shakes its head, and terrifies anyone nearby with a glowing red eye display.
According to Yuji Ota: “We want to let the bears know, “Human settlements aren’t where you live””. The goal was co-existence of man and bear, and secretly, the authorities were hoping that a flood of tourists would arrive as well. Tech wizards are hoping for the sensors to become small and cheap enough that monster robot wolves could be deployed all over Japan – maybe the world.
The plan was to keep the monster robot wolves active until mid-November when the hibernation season kicked in, before restarting them in Spring.
| 7 | How wolves secretly assist bears |
In 1995, grey wolves were finally reintroduced to Yellowstone Park, 70 years after the last pack was shot dead. Farmers in the surrounding regions were worried – what if the wolves wandered in and killed their livestock? Furthermore, could wolves damage the already fragile brown bear population, stealing their prey?
18 years later, it was revealed that brown bears were actually benefitting. The wolf packs had been targeting the local herds of elk for their dinner, and because the elk of Yellowstone particularly rely on berry bushes, this left more berries for bears to devour. Compared to 5 years earlier, the remnants of berries in the bears’ droppings in August had doubled. Berry bushes had become more common in Yellowstone, which included such all-American classics as huckleberry, chokeberry, buffaloberry, twinberry, and serviceberry.
Bears are omnivores, and a diet of 80% meat is no problem for them, but adding berries will improve the Yellowstone bears’ health due to their antioxidants. Curbing the elks (from 19,000 in 1988 to 3900 in 2021) also reduced the pressure which bears were putting on another vegetarian staple, the whitebark pine nut. The revival of berries also helped butterflies, bees and hummingbirds. As for the bears themselves, they’ve expanded from a floor of 136 in 1975 to a bear-tastic 757 in 2014.
Amid the fights, the carcass snatching, and the occasional heartwarming friendship, the net result of grizzlies and wolves overlapping is positive.
| 8 | Bloody carcass warfare |
Bears and wolves don’t target each other just for the fun of it – the real action comes in competition over fresh kills. According to Yellowstone Park director Doug Smith, it’s not a matter of if a bear will come chasing after a wolf kill, but when. Some bears even have the cheek to appear mid battle. According to this 2001 report, 5 wolves had been attacking a bison calf in Yellowstone for around 3 minutes, when a grizzly suddenly strolled over and pulled the back 2 wolves free. He then spent 1 minute attacking the bison’s rear while the other 3 wolves took care of the front. The grizzly delivered the killing blow, before fighting off the other 3 wolves and hogging the carcass for itself.
Naturally, wolf packs attempt the same piracy with grizzlies, and this youtube video shows a grizzly bear fending off a pack of 12 wolves from its elk carcass. Doug Smith claimed to have seen a grizzly bear defend its carcass against 24 wolves at once. A favourite bear technique is dozing on a carcass, as bear 751 showed in Yellowstone in September 2020, when it drowned an elk in a river close to a tourist-filled road. 3 days later, a cunning wolf turned up, and spent 4 minutes creeping towards the sleeping bear repeatedly, before getting scared away each time by wild, swiping paws.
Overall, bears and wolf packs are surprisingly well matched. Of 19 carcass battles studied in Denali National Park from 1966 to 1974, 9 ended with the wolves winning and 10 ended with the bears.
| 9 | Random tales from the wilderness |
Like always, there are no concrete rules in the bear-wolf arena. In 2013, an unusually timid bear was captured about 12 miles from the famous Brooks River of Alaska, where the poplar “bear cam” operates all summer. The bear was sleeping on a moose carcass in the river shallows, before a single wolf showed up and started circling him. The bear charged the wolf a couple of times to show him who was boss, but returned to its comfy carcass each time. The wolf wasn’t even acting aggressively, but when a second wolf walked out of the undergrowth, the bear suddenly abandoned its carcass. It left the area for good, leaving the two wolves dinner for a week. 2 fully grown wolves could never take out a bear, so it’s possible that the bear was already tired.
One bloodthirsty story took place recently in a zoo in the Netherlands. Zookeepers had placed 4 bears and 4 wolves together in hope of fostering intra-species cooperation. For months, it worked, and the animals even played with each other. But one day, when a 2 year old female wolf emerged from the water shallows, 3 bears surrounded her and attacked. 2 other wolves tried to save her, but the fourth bear held them off. She didn’t stand a chance of survival. The zookeepers called it a fluke and announced that they wouldn’t alter the cell. If it wasn’t for the dead wolf, this would be a heartwarming example of rare bear co-operation.
| 10 | Fishing fights |
Fishing sites are another bear-wolf flashpoint. Brooks Falls is a famous river stretch in Alaska which attracts 20-30 hungry bears at a time in July, but in 2015, Katmai National Park released an old 2007 video of a wolf (which was shared 20,000 times in one day) showing up and scooping up salmon in the raging torrent just a few meters from a brown bear. The bear paid no attention, proving that they don’t automatically fight to the death.
However, the photographer warned that if the bear had been hungrier and more aggressive, things might have panned out differently. A lone wolf would never challenge a dominant bear for optimal fishing spots – even smaller grizzlies would be too much. Wolves are also inferior fishermen, scooping up the scraps and carcasses flowing downstream instead. They only have their mouths – they can’t use their big bear paws to pin slippery salmon to the river bed, or their own bulky bodies.
On July 5th 2020, a wolf became famous after turning up and scoffing down 30 fish, staying there for 3 hours, but this was during a quieter period when few bears were around. Yet occasionally, wolves are filmed stealing salmon catches from bears. Unlike bears, who go for the sweet, sweet brains, wolves avoid salmon heads, as they’re usually a reservoir for parasites, which wolves are more vulnerable to.
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