A local photographer recently experienced the opportunity of a lifetime by being in the right place at the right time.

Michael Winsor was in St. Anthony hoping to get some shots of polar bears when he found out that conservation officers were about to release a polar bear recently tranquilized and removed from Harbour Grace. He received special permission to photograph the event.

Winsor set up an iPhone in the snow near the cage holding the bear to get video of the animal. He tells VOCM News he got a good sense of how big and powerful North America’s largest land predators are.

“It was scary,” says Winsor, who compares it to a scene from Jurassic Park “’cause the bear was inside banging on the cage.”

Winsor says once the bear, which he describes as young and fat, ran past the iPhone, he managed to capture some beautiful shots with his camera with the bear looking right at him.