The first example comes from the British Columbian bear safety expert, James Shelton in his book: "Bear Encounter Survival Guide". As a young man he was hunting in the dense coastal forests of B.C. and came upon a female grizzly with two young cubs. He found a place of secure hiding and watched the mother play with her babies with delight. She seemed apprehensive after a while. Suddenly, a large male grizzly burst out of the underbrush and went after one of her cubs. She gave a terrific roar and sprang to attack him. He turned on her and knocked her over with a tremendous blow, seriously injuring her. As she lay stunned on the ground, he went over to the cub, and holding it down, disemboweled it and began eating it while it was still alive. The other cub crept quietly around to the mother, but let out a whimper. The male immediately hurled himself on the other cub and decapitated it. He continued eating the cubs. After a while, the terribly injured mother slowly got up and sadly crept away. The male then started to do the high-stepping strutting grizzly victory dance. At this point, Mr. Shelton, who had originally intended to hunt bears and was appropriately armed, woke out of his shock and killed the male with three shots.
The second example comes from Timothy Treadwell's book "Among Grizzlies". He spent eight summers living on dangerously intimate and defenseless terms with the big brown bears on Alaska's southwestern coast. He only once saw an incident like the following though. He was observing a large female and her fat yearling cub fishing for salmon near the ocean in a remote and uninhabited area. The female was an excellent fisherbear, and had accumulated a substantial pile of salmon by the edge of the water. Then came struggling through the brush a ten year old male. He should have been in the prime of his life, but he was seriously injured. He couldn't walk, but instead dragged his hind legs painfully behind him. He was badly starved and you could see his ribs moving in and out as he labored to draw breath. It was obvious even to human eyes that he had absolutely no chance for survival. The bear crawled down to near the water's edge and collapsed in exhaustion. The female saw the male and walked towards him. Mr. Treadwell was filled with apprehension as he knew how brutal grizzlies could be. The male felt the same way and desperately struggled to get out of the way, but failed and collapsed to the ground again. The female walked right up to him and began kissing and nuzzling him gently. She spent several minutes tenderly lavishing as much affection on him as if he had been her own cub, while he quietly lay there gazing up at her solemnly out of his dark eyes. Timothy said it was one of the most moving things he had ever seen in his whole life. Then, she called her own cub to her and moved away from the pile of fish she had caught, letting the male drag himself to it to eat it.
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