A video is going viral of a hiker in Yellowstone National Park deploying bear spray, but it’s not at a charging grizzly. He aimed it at a wolf that was stalking him.
“I hear someone, or something, running at me so I turn back and the wolf was there,” Ignazio Zanin, a first-time Yellowstone tourist from Texas, tells Outdoor Life. “When I turned back, he stopped. Then he started following me.”
The encounter, caught on a spotting scope video, happened Sunday morning, August 23. Zanin arrived from Texas the night before. He bought bear spray at the Bozeman airport upon arrival. Sunday was his first full day in the park as part of his 5-day vacation.
“The most impressive thing about Yellowstone National Park is the wildlife,” he says. “They are free, not in cages. The best thing for me was to see so many animals free.”
Fifteen minutes into his solo hike, one of those free-roaming animals was on Zanin’s tail — it was a young, collared, black wolf that park staff says was naturally curious.
“There were other people on the trail so I keep calm and walk to the other people,” Zanin says. “I ask them if a wolf this close is normal and they say they thought it was my dog. It was not my dog. It was a wild animal.”
There were about 20 people in the parking lot overlooking Lamar Valley where Zanin was hiking. At least three of those people started recording when the wolf appeared. One of the filmers was first-time Yellowstone visitor Deric Smith, who was on a one-week family vacation from Missouri. He watched the wolf follow Zanin and recorded the encounter on his cell phone, attached to a rented scope that was mounted on a tripod.
“I wanted to see wolves and bears in Lamar Valley,” Smith tells OL. “That was the whole reason for the scope. I saw a grizzly on the first morning and the wolf on the last morning.”
In the video, Zanin is seen wearing a backpack while walking through the northern range of the park that is known for wolf sightings. Zanin says he didn’t have any food in his pack, only water and an umbrella. Regardless, the wolf walks close behind him and sometimes next to him.
“I thought it was a dog and someone had let their dog loose,” Smith says. “I was upset and thinking people are stupid.”
Then Smith noticed the wolf was collared and he’d been watching a collared wolf that morning. He’d lost sight of it until Zanin started hiking, picking up a furry shadow along the way.
“He wasn’t panicking, but he had to be kind of freaking out,” Smith says. “When he sprayed him, I caught it on video. The wolf would not leave him alone. That has to be kind of scary.”
Zanin deployed bear spray toward the wolf twice. The first time the wolf backed off a bit but didn’t leave. The second time Zanin sprayed, the wolf showed no reaction.
“The ranger used a megaphone to warn everyone,” Zanin says. “She said a super long sentence, but the only thing I heard was ‘wolf’. I said to myself, ‘Yeah, it’s like five feet from me. What can I do?’”
Zanin walked a large loop eventually returning to the lot where he met Smith, park rangers, and a crowd of wolf watchers. Staff went over the incident with Zanin and watched Smith’s video, deciding Zanin had acted appropriately when approached by the wolf. Rangers also closed the trail.
A park staff representative told Outdoor Life that, “the wolf involved in the August 23, 2026 incident was a black-colored yearling male belonging to the Junction Butte Pack. The wolf left the scene after the video was taken and no further incidents have been reported.”
The park’s wolf management team applauded his repeated use of bear spray in the situation. Even after multiple sprays, he still had an estimated 80 percent left in the canister.
“They said I was showing the wolf I don’t want him close to me,” Zanin says. “Bear spray is the opposite of giving him food. Makes him understand he cannot come close.”
A canister of bear spray contains enough hot pepper powder to discharge for about seven seconds, 10 seconds if it’s a larger canister. Zanin deploys about two seconds of mist in the short video clip. You can see the broad red cloud in the air, which is a more effective barrier than the narrow red stream released by a small can of less potent pepper spray (mace) that some people carry in case of a human attack.
The difference between bear spray and pepper spray is projection (cloud versus stream) and amount of pepper. Bear spray contains two percent capsaicin (spicy chili peppers). Most pepper sprays contain less than one percent.
While bear spray is most commonly used for deterring bears, particularly grizzlies, it can also be used for other predatory mammals such as mountain lions. It invades eyes, ears and airways usually causing enough discomfort to force retreat, but the wolf in Sunday’s video lingered.
“Even when it was super close to me, it didn’t make any scary noises or anything like that,” Zanin says. “It seemed friendly.”
In June, another Yellowstone visitor approached a pack of five black wolves while using bear spray as people nearby yelled for him to stop. Comments with the post state the incident is under investigation by park staff.
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In Zanin’s case, the park staff determined it was probably just a young curious pack member, but wolves associating people with food rewards has happened. No one has been injured by a Yellowstone wolf since reintroduction in 1995, but the park has killed two wolves for being too interested in humans. One in 2009 and the other in 2011. Both wolves were likely fed by people, which changed their natural behavior.
“The more I think back on it, the more I think that wolf has been fed before. It was looking for someone to have their hand out,” Smith says. “I hope people don’t go out there hoping to experience the same thing. I worry if those wolves get too used to people, the worse it will be for the wolves.”
Looking back, Zanin says he made two mistakes. He hiked alone and he didn’t return to the parking lot as soon as the wolf appeared.
“It was a very weird situation for me,” he says. “I’m happy to have video proof of what happened because no one would believe me otherwise.”
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