grizzly bear warning
A sign warning vistors of grizzly bears sits at the entrance to Bridger-Teton National Forest near Cora, WY, May 27, 2001. Getty Images/Michael Smith

When bears get hungry, they will often look for something tasty to eat. It’s how nature works. That fact remained true when an outdoorsman near Yellowstone National Park this summer witnessed a grizzly bear on its lunch break devouring a fresh cow. You can watch a video below.

Now, you may be thinking: Wait a minute, I have to grill my beef before I eat it or I get sick! Rest assured, bears eat raw meat all the time. In fact, since they don’t have opposable thumbs and generally have small frontal cortices, they have evolved to be able to process raw meats better than you can. Plus, the bear is getting its fill of cow meat as fresh as it can be.

But, bears do eat non-meat cuisine, just like us. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they are omnivorous and chow down on a variety of things. Here’s what they have to say:

“The grizzly bear, like its cousin the black bear, is omnivorous, meaning it will eat plants, as well as insects and other animals. Scavengers by nature, grizzlies spend most of their waking hours searching for food. Forbs, roots, tubers, grasses, berries and other vegetation, and insects comprise most of the bear’s diet. But grizzlies are very adaptable, finding and subsisting on a variety of foods if necessary. The grizzly diet can include small rodents, fish, carrion, and even garbage and human food if it is easily available.

Food sources vary in availability from year to year, and from season to season. Grizzlies move throughout their habitat looking for foods available at that time of year. The availability of many foods is known to the bears by season, and the bears move to these areas based on their experience. In this way, the general seasonal distribution and movements of bears are predictable. Ingestion of large amounts of food in a short time period is critical to grizzly survival, since they are only active and feeding for 6-8 months of every year.”