Behind the Scenes of My Most Bizarre Photo - Moose Inversion

In the latter part of April 1990, a grizzly bear killed a cow moose in the small pond just north of the RR tracks, off the George Park’s Hwy. In so doing, the bear had driven the moose’s legs into the mud and was attempting to free the moose and drag it to shore

A semi-truck drove down the Park’s Hwy, hit its Jake brake, surprising the bear and it took off……..for six weeks.

A friend of mine, Pete Johnson had to commute to work into the park each day, and so we were able to monitor the situation, hoping that the bear would return and drag the moose carcass to the shore.

Only the hump of the moose's back was visible above the water line.  Both ravens and mew gulls would periodically land on and peck away at the hump of the moose’s back attempting to open it up. As time passed the water line slowly lowered exposing more of the hump.

Finally, after six weeks (early June) the bear returned to its now marinated and tenderized moose carcass. It freed the moose carcass from the mud and dragged it to the northeast shore, closest to the edge of the Park’s Hwy.

A strong scent of decomposing moose would waft on the breeze as the bear periodically fed on her “mouth watering” (for a grizzly) prize.

She would come and go from the carcass and now that it on the shoreline, wolves from Denali’s Headquarters family group would periodically feast when the bear wasn’t present.

Denali National Park/Interior Alaska/Early June/Film

This was very early in my time as a photographer, before I had high quality, Nikon lenses. I would have been shooting with an Olympus OM-4 and either with Promaster or Tamron manual focus lenses.

Even though it was photographed with rudimentary equipment, it captured a unique and bizarre moment in time (with the inverted moose) that I have not witnessed since.

Lastly, this is a great example of where there is no time frame or limit in which bears, wolves or any other predator/scavenger are to consume a carcass.

Eating carrion (rotten meat) is not an issue for them, consequently carcasses can be weeks, even several months old and still be good for consumption by various scavengers.

To further illustrate this are my more recent images/video (April 2023) of a Yellowstone grizzly feeding on a five month old bison carcass in one of the Blacktail Ponds.

A narrated video of this can be found here: 

Black Tail Pond - Carrion Grizz.