Why do bears stand on their hind legs? Because they can!
It’s a great way to see more–and to smell more–than they can at ground level. Especially when you’re a tiny cub playing in tall grass.
As you can see, the grass is higher than the cub’s hindquarters, which means that when it’s on all fours, all it can see is…grass. And all the photographer can see is…grass.
This cub and its sibling had some epic wrestling matches while mom was grazing. Sometimes we were able to get a good view, and other times all we saw was the occasional paw sticking up out of the grass.
So we loved it when one cub or the other–or ideally both together–would stand up to take a breather and/or to relocate their mom, who was a fairly mobile grazer.
The cubs–like human children–also loved to climb UP on things, like logs or rocks. That gave them an even better vantage point than standing up on the ground. And of course gave us photographers some delightful photo ops.
Over the next few days, I’ll post some images of cubs being cubs.
rprtphoto 