Discovery’s ‘Great Bear Stakeout’: Grizzly Defends Her Cub (Exclusive Video)

This is one mother no one could call overprotective.

The Hollywood Reporter has an exclusive clip from Discovery Channel's forthcoming special Great Bear Stakeout, for which expert guides and filmmakers spent an entire season living alongside the grizzlies in Alaska to see what exactly it takes for them to survive.

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In this clip, a mother is forced to defend her cub (and their dinner) from a much larger bear in a fight that could end in death.

Great Bear Stakeout aims to give viewers will get an up-close look at the grizzlies, who come out of hibernation each year only to be thrust into a life-and-death battle to feed and mate, with the drama culminating in the annual salmon run. Each bear must double its body weight in less than six months to survive another winter.

Great Bear Stakeout airs -- somewhat appropriately -- on Mother's Day, Sunday, May 12, at 9 p.m. ET/PT. John Goodman narrates the two-hour special.

Kimberly Nordyke