A filmmaker left a trail camera inside an old grizzly bear den near Yellowstone National Park for over ten years, capturing an extraordinary decade-long record of wildlife from inside the cave.
Wildlife photographer and filmmaker Casey Anderson — also known as Grizzly Guy — first placed the camera in the abandoned den in 2013. Anderson knew grizzly bears had once used the cave, so he thought the animals might return and reuse the location. He set up a Reconyx Ultrafire camera trap inside the cave and planned to leave it there long enough to catch anything that came back.
Anderson has now shared the remarkable footage on his YouTube channel Endless Venture and on social media, where it shows how the camera quietly recorded every animal that walked into or past the den across seasons and weather, over the course of a decade.
Casey Anderson’s trail camera captured this mountain lion returning to the cave several times.
According to a report by Newsweek, the trail camera footage revealed far more activity than Anderson expected. Although the filmmaker had hoped to document grizzly bears returning to the den, the camera ended up recording all sorts of animals. One of the standout findings was a mountain lion that revisited the den over and over again. Anderson said the cat’s behaviour was almost obsessive, and the animal’s repeated stops at the cave offered a rare long-term view of how it used the space and moved through the area.
The camera also picked up visits from coyotes and smaller mammals throughout the ten years. Eventually, the trail camera was damaged by a curious bear, which finally stopped the recording. Up until that moment, the camera had continued to work as intended.
“Not only had bears returned, but so had mountain lions, coyotes, and a surprising variety of smaller animals. One mountain lion in particular kept returning again and again, almost obsessively,” Anderson tells Newsweek.
He adds: “This kind of discovery is what drives me. I’ve spent my life locating wild places and setting up cameras to quietly observe what unfolds when no one is around.”
Anderson chose the Reconyx Ultrafire camera trap because it can handle harsh weather and rough terrain, and is known for being durable with a long battery life. Those features allowed it to keep running for ten years in a remote, challenging location and still produce clear, usable footage.
Image credits: All photos by Casey Anderson via YouTube/Endless Venture