As a wildlife filmmaker, Casey Anderson knows that sometimes the best material comes from happy accidents.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what happened when he left cameras inside two grizzly dens north of Yellowstone, then forgot about them for 10 years.<\/p>\n
Over that decade from 2015 to 2025, the motion-activated cameras caught images of not only bears, but a mountain lion, a coyote and other wild creatures venturing into the cramped caves.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I\u2019d done it on purpose,\u201d he told Cowboy State Daily during a telephone interview from his home in Emigrant, Montana.<\/p>\n
As it was, after placing the \u201ccamera traps\u201d in the bear dens in 2015, Anderson got busy with other projects and more or less forgot about those cameras.<\/p>\n
This summer, he and some friends finally hiked into the remote, high-altitude location where the bear dens were.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t hold out much hope of finding the cameras, much less recovering any images from them.<\/p>\n
To their amazement, one camera was still fully intact. The other had been trashed by a bear, but its SD card survived and had recorded video clips on it. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Between them, the cameras had recorded about 300 clips of wild animals\u2019 comings and goings in the caves, which are situated in extremely rough, rocky, high-altitude terrain.<\/p>\n
![\"Wildlife](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Den-cam-mountain-lion-12.29.25.jpg\")
Wildlife filmmaker Casey Anderson set motion-activated cameras in two grizzly dens north of Yellowstone National Park in 2015. He finally recovered the cameras during the summer of 2025, and found they\u2019d captured images of numerous wild animals. (Courtesy Casey Anderson, Endless Venture)A Rare Find<\/p>\n
The two grizzly dens were an almost impossibly rare find to begin with, Anderson said.<\/p>\n
Bears seek out the most remote and gnarliest locations they can find for dens so they won\u2019t be disturbed during winter hibernation, Anderson said.<\/p>\n
And despite popular images of \u201cbear caves,\u201d grizzlies rarely den up for the winter in caves.<\/p>\n
Instead, they usually dig their own dens into the\u00a0sides of steep alpine slopes, \u201cgoing down, and then turning back up\u201d to create a cozy pocket to retain heat over the winter, he said.<\/p>\n
Most natural caves aren\u2019t configured that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are plenty of little caves up there (in the mountains), but the bears don\u2019t use most of them,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n
So, when he was trekking the area in 2015, he couldn\u2019t believe his luck when he found two hard dens in caves on the same day.<\/p>\n
He couldn\u2019t pass up the opportunity to set cameras in them in hopes of capturing interesting video clips for his\u00a0“Endless Venture<\/a>”\u00a0YouTube channel.<\/p>\n Bears Don\u2019t Hang Out In Dens<\/p>\n While grizzlies might use the same den for hibernation year after year, they don\u2019t hang out in the dens after waking up in the spring.<\/p>\n \u201cThe kind of Disney storybook \u2018bear cave thing,\u2019 that doesn\u2019t really happen,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n Instead, grizzlies wander about looking for food during the spring, summer and fall, and find resting spaces undeath trees, rock outcroppings and the like, he said.<\/p>\n Placing motion-activated cameras in the two rare cave dens provided an opportunity to find out what sort of animals might wander in and out while the bears were absent.<\/p>\n Of the clips the cameras captured from 2015 to 2025, one of Anderson\u2019s favorites is of a huge male mountain lion that wandered into a cave to mark it with his scent.<\/p>\n The caves, and similar spots, serve as nature\u2019s \u201cmessage boards,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n Animals of several different species will wander by and mark the spot with their scent.<\/p>\n \u201cAll these animals, they go to check in to see, \u2018Who\u2019s in this territory?\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll see where them mark on top of each other\u2019s marks,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The mountain lion\u2019s daytime venture into the cave made for a dramatic clip, Anderson said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou first see this shadow, then this big cat comes in, and it\u2019s a beautiful mountain lion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Smaller animals like marmots also showed up.<\/p>\n And one clip shows a \u201cmystery\u00a0creature\u201d that might be a wolverine, Anderson said.<\/p>\n![\"Wildlife](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Den-cam-coyote-12.29.25.jpg\")
Wildlife filmmaker Casey Anderson set motion-activated cameras in two grizzly dens north of Yellowstone National Park in 2015. He finally recovered the cameras during the summer of 2025, and found they\u2019d captured images of numerous wild animals. (Courtesy Casey Anderson, Endless Venture)Nature\u2019s \u2018Message Boards\u2019<\/p>\n