Park rangers could bear-ly believe what was captured on cameras they set up to observe wildlife.

What they found was so remarkable that they posted it on social media.

‘Recently, a bear discovered a wildlife camera that we use to monitor wildlife across #Boulder open space,’ tweeted Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) earlier this week.

‘Of the 580 photos captured, about 400 were bear selfies.’

Some Twitter users asked how the 400 bear selfies were taken given it is hibernation time for the big mammals. OSMP, based in Colorado, explained that they originally posted it on their Instagram account last year.

OSMP showed the bear selfies to draw awareness to how it uses wildlife cameras to observe habitats.

‘The motion-detecting cameras provide us a unique opportunity to learn more about how local species use the landscape around us while minimizing our presence in sensitive habitats,’ said OSMP senior wildlife ecologist Will Keeley in a blog post.

‘These cameras play an important role in helping OSMP staff identify important wildlife areas. The information we collect from them is used to recommend habitat-protective measures to help protect sensitive natural areas.’

OSMP has nine cameras across the 46,000 acres of land it oversees.

‘Sometimes we put cameras in locations where we think we’ll encounter enigmatic fauna like American beavers or black bears,’ said OSMP wildlife ecologist Christian Nunes in the blog post.

‘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 not the first time that a camera has recorded unusual snapshots of wildlife.

Late last year, a couple in Alaska observed a moose shed its antlers in real-time after getting an alert from their Ring doorbell camera that recorded the ‘one-in-a-million occurrence’.

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