Grizzly Bear and Wildlife Viewing Blog: Monthly Archives: November 2013

Grizzly Bear injured in fight

grizzly plays with food
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No this bear has not become so attached to the salmon it wants to cuddle the fish rather its front paw was injured in a fight and it is not able to hold the salmon.  This bear got into a fight with a mother grizzly that had a cub close and came out second best.  Its front paw cannot support any weight but it manages to catch and eat salmon and is putting on the necessary bulk to survive hibernation.  Only time will tell if it will survive the winter but so far we have been watching it for over a month and all is well.

Grizzly Bears Claws

brown bear
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Grizzly Claws “Brown bear claws are long and curved, ranging in color from yellow to brown.  In rare cases grizzlies have been observed with white claws.  These claws are used to dig up roots and bulbs of plants as well as to excavate den sites (Brown 1993, p 74).”  The white claws are often seen on the grizzly bears we view on the wild river we visit on the extra day in the lodge. 

Eagles on tour

eagle waiting
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“Bald eagles are believed to mate for life. A pair constructs an enormous stick nest—one of the bird-world’s biggest—high above the ground and tends to a pair of eggs each year. Immature eagles are dark, and until they are about five years old, they lack the distinctive white markings that make their parents so easy to identify. Young eagles roam great distances. Florida birds have been spotted in Michigan, and California eagles have traveled all the way to Alaska.” A quote from National Geographic.  In our viewing area eagles are common on the whale watching and grizzly bear tours until the salmon have arrived in the rivers in mid-August.  At this time the eagles move to the rivers and are less common on whale watching days bur still enough for good pictures.

 

Orca watching tour

orca watching
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A pod of orca (killer whales) passes close on one of the lodge’s whale watching tours. One big plus of viewing the marine “wildlife” in our viewing area is the absence of many other boats.  The southern resident orca near Victoria on Vancouver Island has thirty-one different companies each with several boats observing them on a daily basis. In our area, on a busy day, there may by nine boats in the area and not all watching the whales at the same time. This picture shows two boats in the background but if you take time to check other picture in the blog you will not find many with boats in the background.  In fact I get more complaints about the lack of other boats to provide a perspective for photos than I do about the presence of boats.

Grizzly Bear Estuary Tours

grizzly family in water
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As the tide rises in Knight Inlet’s Glendale River estuary the grizzly bear tour from our lodge is able to move up the river and observe bears in their natural surroundings. Even thought the bears have accepted our presence the key: “Is to leave the bears as you find them”. As long as this “philosophy” is followed the bears ignore our viewing and provide opportunities for many great photos such as this mother and her cubs feeding in the river on a rising tide. 

Grizzly Bear Fishing Techniques

grizzly splash fishing
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Running after salmon in deep water does not seem to be a good technique to catch salmon but the size of the bear indicates success and that is what matters. Every grizzly viewed from the stand on the Glendale River seems to have its own fishing style and in the end all that matters is if the grizzly is able to catch enough salmon to fatten for hibernation.  This particular grizzly bear is five years old so the technique works.

Humpback whales fluking

whale diving
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An excellent photo of the top of a humpback whales fluke. It clearly shows the scares left by barnacles as well as hole from an old injury. The whale watching tours from Grizzly Bear Lodge has viewed many more humpback whales this summer than in previous years. Viewing each year has improved from an average of four or five whale’s five years ago to twelve to fourteen whales this past summer. The abundance of herring (humpbacks main food) in the area men the whales are spending the summer s in our viewing area rather than traveling to their normal feeding grounds in Alaska.

Spring Black Bear visiting the lodge

black bear at lodge
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Grizzly Bear Lodge is located on Minstrel Island, which is located about 32 kilometers (20 miles) from the mouth of Knight Inlet.  The black bears in the area are good swimmers and move from island to island in the area. It is common to view black bear on Minstrel Island, in this case not too far from the Lodge. In early spring before there is more activity with the guests the bears are more common but as the Lodge becomes busier the bears tend to stay away from the lodge area but are still on the inland.

Grizzly with pink salmon

fresh salmon
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The watercolour indicates that his photo was taken after a heavy ran.  The water in the entrance to the spawning channel on the Glendale River is normally clear and it is easy to see the salmon swimming but the rains bring runoff sediment to the river and poor visibility.  This does not seem to bother the grizzly bear’s ability to catch salmon as this bear sits and eats freshly caught pink salmon.

Grizzly Bear Siblings

cubs fishing
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Grizzly bear tours from our lodge, until August 24, are along the shores of Knight Inlet especially in the estuary of the Glendale River. The tour leaves the lodge at 8:00 a.m. and travels up Knight Inlet looking for black bears, eagles and other marine “wildlife” such as dolphins, whales and orca. Upon arriving at the river estuary we transfer to a 17-foot flat bottom skiff which has a very shallow draft (of maybe six inches). This allows us to travel up the river and estuary where the bears are feeding sedge grass. It is not uncommon to have sub-adult grizzly bear siblings in the area. In the case of this photo they are trying to catch one of the first pink salmon which start arriving in the area in early August. It is easy to see that the tide is on the rise, which means the water is too deep for a successful catch.