Park Rangers Check Camera Trap and Discover 400 of the 580 Photos it Took 'Were Bear Selfies'
The camera trap that captured the glamorous, pose-loving bear was placed by Boulder, Colorado's Open Space and Mountain Parks office
Rangers for a Colorado park system found a surprise when they checked a wildlife camera trap —400 bear selfies.
Boulder, Colorado's Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) wanted to observe the land system's sensitive wildlife habitats unobtrusively, so park rangers placed nine camera traps across 46,000 acres to see how animals used the area.
Upon checking one of the camera traps to see what wildlife it captured, rangers found hundreds of photos of a shamelessly curious bear.
"Recently, a bear discovered a wildlife camera that we use to monitor wildlife across Boulder's OSMP. Of the 580 photos captured, about 400 were bear selfies," OSMP shared in the study it created based on the data pulled from the camera traps, per SWNS.
OSMP added that the cameras cut down on the time rangers spend in sensitive habitats and help the department learn more about local wildlife's use of the landscape.
"Every day, scores of animal species furtively scurry across Boulder landscapes to search for food and to find resting places. Most often, no one — not even City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) staff — ever sees them," an OSMP spokesperson told SWNS.
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"But sometimes OSMP staff is fortunate enough to get an up-close look at local wildlife thanks to a system of motion-detecting cameras that passively capture snapshots and videos of animals residing in their natural state," they added.
The content the cameras capture, bear selfies included, can help rangers identify wildlife areas that require "habitat-protective measures," said Will Keeley, a senior wildlife ecologist for Open Space and Mountain Parks.
An OSMP camera trap snaps a photo each time its motion detector is set off. The cameras use infrared light to create photographs, which minimizes any disturbance to nocturnal wildlife.
OSMP places its cameras in corridors where animals are likely to travel, such as road underpasses, and where there are signs of wildlife activity.
"Sometimes we put cameras in locations where we think we'll encounter enigmatic fauna like American beavers or black bears," said Christian Nunes, a wildlife ecologist with OSMP. "We are fortunate to live in an area with a rich diversity of wildlife species, and these cameras help us to learn what animals are really out there and what they are up to over the course of a day, a week, or even years."
It is unclear what caused one Colorado bear to pose for hundreds of selfies, but OSMP is happy to have the adorable data.
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