The Grizzly Bear Named "Jam"; Part II; Feeding On An Elk Calf

Jam—taking a break from eating an elk calf and showing off her teeth.  Or is that a smile?
(click any image to enlarge)

Here are some additional photos of Jam the four-year old grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park..  

Some context:  On my recent road trip and when in Yellowstone National Park (YNP) we encountered a four-year old grizzly bear that has been given the name of Jam.  Jam was feeding on an elk calf she killed just moments before we arrived.  She had just dragged her prey behind deadfall (thankfully) far away from our position—really too far to make good photographs.  However, due to my excitement I photographed her anyway.  

For this set of images I used my Nikon Z8 with the Nikon 180-600mm f.5.6-6.3 lens attached.  Because of the extreme distance, I attached the Nikon 1.4X Z-mount tele-converter and also enacted the DX feature in the camera.  The DX feature crops the image at 1.5X and reduces the files size from 45.7mp to 19.4mp.  The benefit of using DX in camera rather than just cropping in Lightroom later is that it magnifies the image in the viewfinder which provides for more accurate autofocus.  Even with the effective 1260mm focal length, I still had to crop in the final image by about two-thirds.  As I said, she was really far away.  By the way, all these images were made using a large carbon fiber Induro tripod with a gimbal head attached.  The photos were made over the course of an hour or so.  Too long to hand hold the camera and lens.

In this image you can see part of the calf—its leg below the horizontal log and its torso under her right front paw and claws.

It would have made for better photographs if Jam hadn’t dragged the carcass behind the deadfall but it was gruesome enough to watch her head movements while she was ripping and tearing the calf apart.  Graphic enough for me.

Two fellow photographers were photographing this scene along side of me.  As we stood and photographed, a woman approached me and asked if I was there when the bear grabbed the calf.  I told her we arrived just afterwards.  She said the poor calf was screaming for its life “for the longest time” and she was praying the bear would just go ahead and kill it and not torture it any longer.  I’m glad I missed that.

This is a much different scenario than my previous, rather benign, post of this same bear foraging for vegetation.

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Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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