In September 2021, a hunter from Laramie, Wyoming, named Dylan Schilt picked up a GoPro camera lying in the backcountry while he was out archery hunting. Someone had lost it while snowmobiling, and it had sat outdoors for months. When Schilt charged it back at camp, he found more than four minutes of footage of an American black bear batting the camera around, picking it up in its mouth and, by accident, filming its own face and teeth at point-blank range.
The clip quickly became known as the bear that filmed itself. Here is what the footage actually shows, how the timeline was pieced together, why a bear would bother with a camera, and how this compares with the famous monkey selfie case.
How the camera was found
Schilt shared the video on Facebook, explaining that he had come across the GoPro the previous week on a bow-hunting trip and had charged it once he got back to camp. PetaPixel, the photography news site that reported the story, noted that he did not name the exact spot, describing it only as wilderness near Laramie. His short summary of the moment he played the files back became the line most outlets quoted: Hands down the craziest thing I've ever found!
By his estimate the camera had been lying on the ground for about four months. Schilt said a big black bear had found it and somehow switched it on. The owner, the person who lost it while snowmobiling, was not identified in the reporting.
What the footage shows
The video runs for a little over four minutes and was shot from the ground. For roughly the first minute and a half the bear noses and paws at the camera, pushing it around in the snow as it tries to get a grip. Once it manages to pick the GoPro up, the lens swings towards the bear's own face, giving extreme close-ups of its muzzle, tongue and teeth. That accidental angle is what earned the clip its selfie nickname.
Eventually the bear drops the camera and loses interest. The final seconds show the GoPro lying on its own in the snow with the animal gone.
How did a bear turn the camera on? Nobody knows for sure. The most likely explanation is that its paw or jaw pressed the power and shutter buttons in the right sequence while it was handling the device. GoPro cameras are small and have only a few large buttons, so an animal tumbling one around has a better chance than you might think of triggering a recording.
Dating the clip from the snow
The footage carries no reliable timestamp, so the season had to be worked out from clues in the picture. PetaPixel pointed out that there is plenty of wet-looking snow on the ground but none on the tree branches. That suggests a thaw rather than mid-winter, which fits Schilt's own guess of late spring and his estimate that the camera had been lying out for about four months before he found it in September.
It is a good example of the kind of reasoning used to reconstruct any found footage: the story comes from the finder's account plus visual evidence, not from the bear. Those details are reasonable estimates rather than established facts.
Why bears investigate strange objects
Black bears are famously curious and food-driven. Their sense of smell is far stronger than ours, and they explore new things with their noses, paws and mouths. A camera that has been handled by people, perhaps carried near food or sunscreen, may smell interesting. Spring is also a hungry season: bears are leaving their dens after winter and searching widely for anything edible.
PetaPixel noted that it is unclear whether the bear thought the GoPro was food or was simply inspecting a strange object. Either way, its behaviour in the video, sniffing, pawing, mouthing and then walking off, is typical exploratory behaviour rather than anything aggressive.
The American black bear is the most widespread bear in North America, found from Alaska and Canada down to northern Mexico, and it is common in the forests and mountains of Wyoming. Despite the name, many black bears are brown, cinnamon or even blond.
A wildlife clip, not a challenge
The footage is fun precisely because nobody was there. Getting close to a bear on purpose for a similar shot would be dangerous for the person and harmful for the bear. The U.S. National Park Service advises people to keep their distance from bears, make noise on the trail so bears hear them coming, and never let a bear get at their food. A bear that learns people and their gear mean a snack can become a problem animal and may end up being removed.
If you meet a black bear, the Park Service says not to run and not to climb a tree, since black bears climb well. Unlike with grizzlies, you should not play dead with a black bear; if one actually attacks, you should fight back, aiming at its face and muzzle. A bear standing on its hind legs is usually just trying to get a better look or smell.
Wildlife researchers do use cameras to film animals up close, but they rely on remote trail cameras and fixed set-ups that animals find on their own, not on luring them. Schilt's lucky find is a reminder of how much these unattended cameras can reveal.
Animal selfies and the monkey copyright case
Schilt's video also revived memories of the best-known animal self-portrait of all. In 2011 a wild crested black macaque on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi pressed the shutter of a camera set up by British wildlife photographer David Slater, producing a grinning photo that went around the world.
What followed was a long legal fight over who owned the picture. In 2014 the U.S. Copyright Office said it would not register works made without human authorship. In 2015 the animal rights group PETA sued Slater on behalf of the monkey, whom it named Naruto. A federal judge dismissed the case in January 2016, ruling that animals cannot hold copyright under U.S. law, and in 2017 Slater and PETA agreed a settlement in which he pledged a quarter of future revenue from the images to wildlife charities. In April 2018 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that an animal cannot sue for copyright. Slater said the years of dispute had badly hurt his business and finances.
The same principle would apply to the bear: under U.S. law, a recording made by an animal on its own has no animal author who can own it. Whether the camera's owner or anyone else could claim rights is a separate question, and the macaque case shows how complicated it can become.
For most viewers, though, the bear clip is simply a rare look at a wild animal's curiosity from the animal's own point of view, which is why it was shared so widely.
Sources: Video by Dylan Schilt, first posted on Facebook; PetaPixel, 24 September 2021; National Park Service: Staying safe around bears; Wikipedia: Monkey selfie copyright dispute.
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