Grizzly bear makes surprise appearance in wildlife photographer’s award-winning shot

A grizzly bear unexpectedly hogged the spotlight on a photographer’s mission to capture the perfect picture.

Zack Clothier, a Montana-based wilderness photographer, found the remains of a bull elk in Montana and decided to set up a camera to capture photos of other wildlife scavenging off the corpse, Live Science reported.

Clothier left the camera there for at least two months, and getting back to the camera wasn’t easy. He said on his blog that it became much harder to access the camera as winter transitioned into spring, and that he stayed away for as long as possible before having to replace the batteries.

Clothier “bridged gushing meltwater with fallen trees, only to find his setup trashed,” according to The Weather Channel. The elk carcass had been dragged away from the camera, and Clothier noticed bear tracks nearby, he wrote on his blog.

When he reviewed the images, he saw a striking image — one very clear photo of a grizzly bear peering into the camera with the elk remains behind it, “just before it lunges at the camera,” Live Science reported.

“My jaw literally dropped when I came across this chilling image,” Clothier wrote on his blog.

That photo, titled “Grizzly Leftovers,” received the 2021 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award for the “Animals in their Environment” category. The award was given by the Natural History Museum in London, which hosts the international competition every year.

The competition is recognized as “the world’s longest-running and most prestigious nature photography competition,” according to NPR.

Clothier thinks the bear might have been startled by the sound of the camera’s lens.

“I suppose he simply noticed the noise and didn’t like it, so he trashed it,” Clothier told Nature World News.

This story was originally published October 20, 2021 at 11:55 AM with the headline "Grizzly bear makes surprise appearance in wildlife photographer’s award-winning shot."