Claim:
A photo shared on social media in mid-2024 accurately showed a size comparison between a bear’s paw and the man holding it.
Rating:
Context:
Though there was no reason to doubt the authenticity of the photo, Snopes spoke with a wildlife expert who confirmed the size was likely the result of forced perspective, a photography trick that makes objects closer to the camera appear larger.
In August 2024, a photo resurfaced on social media showing a man holding a bear’s paw that appeared to be roughly twice the size of his head. One Spanish-speaking X user who shared the image added the caption (translated to English): “This is how big a bear’s paw is.”
Similar posts appeared on Reddit and Facebook in July, however the picture had been circulating online since at least 2021. One such example was shared on Instagram in Feb. 2024 with a caption that read “The size of a Grizzly Bear’s Paw.”
A reverse-image search of the photograph using Google Lens (archived) returned a version that was posted to Facebook in Oct. 2021 (archived) that was said to show a man by the name of Rick Paillet.
The same image was posted on Paillet’s Facebook page earlier that month (archived) with a caption that said he had “killed the giant bear” during a hunting trip in Alaska.
Though there was no reason to doubt the picture’s authenticity, there may have been an element of forced perspective at play. Snopes contacted Paillet for further details about the bear, including its age, sex and measurements, and will update this article accordingly. Because of the apparent optical illusion, we rated this claim as “Miscaptioned.”
As Snopes previously reported, forced perspective is a photography technique that can “make things appear bigger or smaller than they actually are, depending on their distance from the camera and other objects.” Take, for example, this odd photograph of U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Jimmy Carter (or any fish photo on a person’s dating profile, for that matter).
Snopes spoke with Riley Woodford of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, who is also the photo editor for the agency’s image library. Woodford said that though he believed the photograph was genuine, the size of the paw was likely due to a camera trick:
[Paillet] is kneeling back behind the bear, the hunting guide/photographer is using a low camera angle, and in the “paw picture” the hunter is holding the paw out at arms-length, thrusting it at the camera. You can see his arm is extended and his elbow is barely bent. It’s a big animal to be sure, but they are exaggerating the size.
It was not known which region of Alaska the bear was killed in and, without that information, Snopes was not able to verify its species.
Grizzly and brown bears are largely considered to be the same species (scientific name Ursus arctos). However, grizzly bears are classified as a separate subspecies (U. a. horribilis), as the National Park Service noted, because of a few morphological differences.
“Evolution happens gradually and when looking at a range of subspecies, it’s a spectrum, not a well-drawn line,” Woodford said. “The Kodiak bear has been isolated from other brown bear populations for at least 40,000 years, and has developed some distinctive divergent characteristics, mainly the size.”
Kodiak bears (U. a. middendorffi), found only on Alaska’s Kodiak Archipelago, are the largest bears in the world. With a weight of up to 1,500 pounds, a large male can stand more than 10 feet tall on his hind legs, and 5 feet when on all fours. Females, by comparison, are about four-fifths the size and roughly two-thirds the weight of males.
Other brown bears typically weigh between 500 and 900 pounds, though according to the National Park Service a weight of 1,400 pounds is “not unheard of in the fall.” On their hind legs, brown bears can stand almost 9 feet tall, and between 3 and 5 feet when on all fours.
With big bears come big paws. iNaturalist, a nonprofit social network of naturalists, citizen scientists and biologists, reported that all 4 feet in average-size brown bears tend to be between 7 and 8 inches wide. Large male coastal or Kodiak males may see hind feet that measure up to 16 inches in length and 11 inches in width.
For further reading, check our other Snopes fact-checks related to bears.
Sources:
“Brown Bear (Mammals of Serbia – Guide) · iNaturalist.” iNaturalist, https://www.inaturalist.org/guide_taxa/889098. Accessed 22 Feb. 2024.
Brown Bear Frequently Asked Questions – Katmai National Park & Preserve (U.S. National Park Service). https://www.nps.gov/katm/learn/photosmultimedia/brown-bear-frequently-asked-questions.htm. Accessed 22 Feb. 2024.
Brown Bear – Ursus Arctos – Kenai Fjords National Park (U.S. National Park Service). https://www.nps.gov/kefj/learn/nature/brown-bear.htm. Accessed 22 Feb. 2024.
Brown Bears – Bears (U.S. National Park Service). https://www.nps.gov/subjects/bears/brown-bears.htm. Accessed 22 Feb. 2024.
Evon, Dan. “Snopes Tips: A Guide To Performing Reverse Image Searches.” Snopes, 22 Mar. 2022, https://www.snopes.com//articles/400681/how-to-perform-reverse-image-searches/.
—. “Why Do the Bidens Look Giant in Photo With Carters?” Snopes, 4 May 2021, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/bidens-photo-carters/.
Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/luckyduckdecoys/posts/our-very-own-rick-paillet-was-in-alaska-and-had-the-opportunity-of-a-lifetime-he/2534487930017584/. Accessed 22 Feb. 2024.
“Https://Twitter.Com/AC_Black_/Status/1756066132401025424.” X (Formerly Twitter), Accessed 22 Feb. 2024.
Kodiak Brown Bear Fact Sheet, Alaska Department of Fish and Game. https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=brownbear.trivia. Accessed 22 Feb. 2024.
Wrona, Aleksandra. “Examples of a Deceptive Photography Trick: Forced Perspective.” Snopes, 22 May 2023, https://www.snopes.com//list/forced-perspective/.
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