A trail cam video on the Trailcampro YouTube channel offers a gripping and rarely-seen look into the raw realities of predator-prey interactions, capturing the chilling moment a black bear hunts down a newborn whitetail fawn.

The footage begins gently, showing a whitetail doe tenderly grooming her newborn fawn, still unsteady on its legs. 

However, tranquility is short-lived.

Just 12 seconds into the video, the doe suddenly grows alert, ears perked forward, as a young black bear emerges from the woods. 

Instantly protective, she stomps and snorts at the intruder, positioning herself between the predator and her offspring.

Responding instinctively to danger, the fawn drops to the ground and plays dead. 

But the doe, overwhelmed by the threat, flees after another anxious snort.

Moments later, the bear swiftly moves in, biting the fawn’s back and violently shaking it, prompting heartbreaking bleats from the young deer. 

A trail cam video recently shared on the Trailcampro YouTube channel provides an intense and seldom-witnessed glimpse into predator-prey dynamics, capturing the moment a black bear encounters and kills a newborn whitetail fawn

Just 12 seconds into the video, the doe suddenly grows alert, ears perked forward, as a young black bear emerges from the woods

The doe’s anxious snorts can still be heard from off-camera. 

Though primarily omnivorous and largely plant-focused, black bears are opportunistic predators.

Newborn fawns, vulnerable and easy to overpower, make ideal prey under the right circumstances.

‘Bears don’t really actively hunt fawns. They’re so consumed with just getting whatever food they can,’ Myron Means, former large carnivore program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, told Outdoor Life. 

‘Of course, they’d pounce a deer fawn if they had an opportunity.’

The footage, timestamped May 23, 2024, was released publicly on Thursday.

This comes shortly after another noteworthy bear sighting: an enormous grizzly caught on camera prowling through snow near West Yellowstone, Montana, marking the beginning of the 2025 grizzly season.

Professional wildlife photographer Trent Sizemore, who placed the trail cam, shared the video online where it quickly went viral.

Responding instinctively to danger, the fawn drops to the ground and plays dead

Moments later, the bear swiftly moves in, biting the fawn’s back and violently shaking it, prompting heartbreaking bleats from the young deer

‘Looks like he wintered well!’ commented one viewer. 

Sizemore suspects this bear is the same large male grizzly he has tracked for three consecutive years, consistently one of the first to emerge from hibernation. 

Grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem usually begin waking in early-to-mid March, with large males surfacing first and females with cubs often remaining dormant until May.