大象传媒

After five months sleeping in the mountains, a powerful presence returns to Yellowstone. This female grizzly bear has awoken early to find food for her two year old cubs. But she may have brought her family here too early. The Tetons - on the extreme southern edge of the Yellowstone plateau - is where the spring thaw normally begins. But this year, it鈥檚 come late. Deep snow is still a novelty for her cubs, but the mother is much more focused. Led by her nose, she risks her three hundred pound bulk on the thin ice of a bend in the Snake River. It doesn鈥檛 look promising but her cubs follow with only a little hesitation. With paws that can knock down an elk, she feels delicately in the water and pulls out a fish frozen beneath the ice by this cold winter. But one fish won鈥檛 feed the family and she knows there are almost certainly more. The cubs must learn to find them. They delve into the slushy shallows, turning over slices of ice and regularly falling through into the deeper water. One of the cubs has a little success. This mother bear鈥檚 experience gives her family a good chance of survival until spring arrives. They will return again and again as the thaw releases more fish.