Watch a Bear Find Then Annihilate a Wolf Den with Young Pups

What happens when one apex predator finds the home of another? This. A camera in the wild captured what happened when a bear discovered a wolf den full of young pups.

Note: this video is not graphic, but the outcome for the young wolves is likely what you suspect. Researchers placed cameras near an area where they suspected wolves had built a den. Here's how they explained how this started on YouTube:

Every May we conduct a study on denning in wolves. This year one of the wolf dens with six pups was extirpated by a brown bear.

Get our free mobile app

They did not expect their camera to document what happens sometimes when a bear discovers a den like this. Spoiler Alert: it did not end well for the den and probably not for the wolf pups either.

The researchers wanted to be clear that they did not crawl into the wolf den and the video above the den was a non-manned trail camera. They did not want to affect nature and the natural habitat and interactions of the wolves nor did they want to intervene with the bear's response.

There is no documentation of what the bear did to the pups after digging out the den. It could have collapsed on them or the bear might have killed and eaten them. The research teams continue to dig (no pun intended) into the area to find out what the result really was.

You can check out the full article from the research team on what they did and what they learned on their website.