Photo by Salah Malkawi/Getty Images
That camera became a decade-long animal soap opera.
A wildlife photographer has gone back to collect a camera he left in a cave 10 years ago, and what he found on it was way more than he expected. So much so, he went on to say: “This kind of discovery is what drives me. I’ve spent my life locating wild places and setting up cameras to quietly observe what unfolds when no one is around.”
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According to Unilad, Casey Anderson, 49, takes photos of animals in the American West. He put the camera in a cave that grizzly bears were using as their den more than 10 years ago. He wanted to see if the bears would come back and use it again.
When Anderson went back to get his camera from the bear den, he found out it had recorded much more than just bears. “Not only had bears returned, but so had mountain lions, coyotes, and a surprising variety of smaller animals,” he told the media. “One mountain lion in particular kept returning again and again, almost obsessively.”
People had one big question
Anderson shared a video on his Instagram showing when he finally went back to get the camera. What it recorded was amazing. There were mountain lions, coyotes, grizzly bears, and lots of other smaller animals that came to the cave over those 10 years.
Leaving cameras in the wild like this helps photographers get good shots because animals act normal when there are no people around. But you need to wait a really long time, and you might not get anything good when you come back. The camera might not even work anymore after sitting there for so long.
Everyone who saw Anderson’s post wanted to know the same thing: how did the battery work for 10 years? One person asked: “Please tell me what batteries lasted 10 years!” Anderson said back: “I was shocked.” When someone else said “So cool. Batteries lasted,” Anderson told them what really happened. He said: “Very cool. Bear knocked it over, so it was inactive for most of that time.”
“I’m highly entertained at the thought of an irritated bear opening the camera and tearing out the wires! As humans we assume the cameras are silent. This is a reminder that some animals can probably hear the hardware whining at a higher pitch or frequency,” another user wrote.
Even though a bear pushed the camera over and it was not recording for most of the time, it still got some really good videos when it was working. What Anderson found shows that waiting a long time can pay off when you are trying to photograph wild animals, and you never know what might happen when you leave a camera alone in nature for years.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
Published: Nov 20, 2025 05:15 pm