Grizzly Bear Behavior: From Playful to Vicious

It was my role to monitor the grizzly bears in that particular area. With the use of telemetry, I was able to locate two grizzlies that were engaged in the act of courtship. Both bears were five years old and after a few minutes went into the trees. As I fumbled with my equipment, I was getting full signals for four bears on location. With none of them in sight I decide to pull up to where the two entered the trees and see nothing. Besides the sounds of nature, all is quiet until I hear twigs and branches being quickly stepped on and a few growls. Less then 30m away pops out the mating pair, moving west away from me......but the growling continues and I look back at the trees and there is a very large male grizzly. He sees me and immediately turns back and I can hear his vocalizations fade as he gets further away. The two five year olds have now got to about 100m away when I see a young male emerge from the ditch and put the run on the female bear. This young male is actually the 2 year old brother of hers, and these two were always challenging each other. She realizes who it is and turns the tables on him, chasing him off into the trees near my location. The five year old male and I watch this play out when I notice another bear off to my left, it is a 3-4 year old female that has been traveling with the young male.
The big sister emerges from the trees and sees the young female, and puts the run on her........with me in the path of retreat. Sliding behind the cover of my truck door the two bears pass me, the whole time the two males seem to be amused and taking it all in. The five year old seems content that she has established who is the boss and returns to her mate, and soon so does the younger of the two. But once again the chase is on, even though it was very half hearted. Now that the point had been made all four bears returned to their partners and were fine being only 30m apart.
After 18 years of working and volunteering within bear management, this is by far one of my favorite moments. I started well off and quickly found myself right in the middle of things. The bears did their thing and I got to take in the show. Plus, finding five bears all in the same area away from people meant I had a fairly easy morning a head of myself.
This video is a remake of a previous version (2016) as I was able to better edit out the camera noise and make it more enjoyable to watch.......in the comments let me know if you enjoyed the video, thanks for tuning in!