VIDEO: Park Ranger Shoos Big Grizzly and Cub Away

Montana and Alaska enjoy a good-natured rivalry, in that Alaska seems to be trying to be the Montana of the non-contiguous United States, while Montana wants to be a saner Alaska.  

Just look at the bears up there - they grow them the size of a 1959 Plymouth Fury. At Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, where they let the bears run free like children, they even have the Fattest Bear Contest to celebrate the biggest, most monstrous predator lurking hungrily nearby. 

Just kidding, we love the Brooks Falls bears. We're just scared of them.  

So check out this video of a Ranger at Brooks Falls fearlessly shooing a mother grizzly (a gigantic mother grizzly named Grizzly 435, or Holly, who won the Fattest Bear contest herself a year or two ago!) and cub away from the lodge's buildings. She kicks at it and takes a stern, motherly tone with the two bears, and it works.

You probably noticed that the cub is favoring one paw. This is because last week she had a run-in with an ornery porcupine that resulted in the poor little cub getting some quills to the foot, a painful but essential lesson not to mess with porcupines. 

The fearless Park Ranger, who the videographer thinks may be named Julie, is obviously great at her job. But the part of us that feels that Montana is superior to every other state or nation thinks that if that had been a Montana grizzly, it would be both leaner, and meaner. And a mere "shoo!" wouldn't be enough to dissuade it.  

But then again, we're biased. 

See the whole video below!