WARNING: Graphic images. Viewer discretion is advised.
The video shows Andrew Renner and his son, Owen, skiing shirtless up to the bear den on Esther Island in Prince William Sound. The Renners then kill the hibernating bear mother before turning and killing her “shrieking” cubs.
The men are then seen pulling the mother bear from the den, high-fiving each other before posing for photos with the dead bear.
“They’ll never be able to link this to us,” the son is recorded saying in the video. Wrong.
What the Renners didn’t know was they carried out the slayings in front of motion-activated camera set up outside the den as part of a bear study by the U.S. Forest Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
According to court documents, the men realized the mother bear had a Fish and Game collar after dragging it from the den. That’s when the son said he had removed the collar. The pair then butchered the mother bear, placed the remains in bags and skied away from the area.