The sighting of an oversized bear in far northern Minnesota is generating outsized interest on social media.
The fat bear, in no hurry, is seen sauntering through the frame in trail camera footage shot Oct. 7 by researchers with the Voyageurs Wolf Project. The team published the clip last week on its Facebook page.
The bear post is a departure from the wolf work but maybe not entirely unexpected. The biologists have been tracking 10-11 wolf packs for years in and around Voyageurs National Park using GPS collars and other electronic tools to document their summer lives. A camera attached to a wild wolf in the spring of 2020 produced surprising footage of the creature's fishing skills.
For now, a gargantuan forest neighbor is getting the attention. The group's Facebook post on Tuesday had 369,000 views and 639 comments, with many remarking on the astonishing size of the bear.
"It surely is an impressive bear," said Andrew Tri, bear project leader for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, who guessed it weighs about 700 pounds. "It's not the largest bear we have ever had in the state, but it is a big one."
Tri tamped down guesses online about the bear's appearance, given its prodigious belly: It's likely a large male — so, not pregnant. A growing fetus doesn't swell in a sow's belly, and newborns weigh about a pound.
As for its massive girth, the bear could have frequented the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary in Orr, Minn., where staff keep the bears well-sustained with a high-calorie mix of fruit and nuts, Tri said. The sanctuary is about 22 miles south of the trail cam's location. Tri said bears are known to migrate as many as 100 miles during fall.
"Our normal bears in the wild without human-provided food, they just don't get that big or that fat," Tri added.
