I’ve spent a good part of my life fishing and hunting in black bear country, from northwestern Wisconsin to northern Minnesota, and throughout Canada. I’ve watched black bears act in some interesting and unpredictable ways during several black bear hunts, and once had to confront a mature boar at the base of my ladder stand when he started to climb. (His thick black hide now hangs in my living room.) I’m not afraid of bears, but I do have a healthy respect for them. After all, they are predators.

In the video below, Adam Hudec is fishing in northern Saskatchewan, Canada, when he spots two mature bald eagles and an eaglet in their nest. Unfortunately for the eagles, however, there’s a black bear that smells lunch in the tree, and it begins climbing toward the nest.

I refer to a bear of this age/size as a juvenile; it’s not an old or big black bear. This is the age/size black bear that typically causes the most trouble for wilderness campers, as well as those who live in bear country (raiding trash cans and bird feeders, etc.).

Hudec’s original video from July 7, 2022, is 2 minutes long, but I’m not embedding it here because of bad (really bad) language. However, I found a 15-second version posted on TikTok by someone else that doesn’t include that language. The clip below has commentary not included in the original video, but that’s okay; you get to see the important moment when the bear grabs the eaglet and then begins to descend the tree. Prior to the bear grabbing the eaglet, the two mature eagles do their best to defend their nest. At one point they land on the edge of the nest and use their sharp beaks to attack the intruder, but the bear doesn’t retreat.

(Click here if you want to watch the original 2-minute version. Again, a reminder: It contains bad language.)

I’m not surprised by the young bear’s behavior. Oftentimes a lack of natural food (drought conditions reducing a wild berry crop, for example) causes bears to seek calories in creative ways.

@truthhammer711 #nature #circleoflife #eagle #blackbear #babyeagle ♬ original sound - Timothy 🐼