Grizzly Bear and Wildlife Viewing Blog: Monthly Archives: July 2015

Grizzly Coming Our Way

Large grizzly bear

The viewing stand we use in the fall is located on the Glendale River and the grizzlies we view use the river as their highway as well as their larder. This good sized male grizzly came down the river very close to our platform and fished for salmon for the for more than half and hour before continuing down river. As I have stated before in the blog it is good to have the big bears have a short visit because they tend to scare other bears.

 

 

Successful Fishing

Bald Eagle Fishing

Whether you are on the lodge’s front deck, on a grizzly bear trip, whale watching in Johnstone Straits, or on your way to Trapper Rick’s you will see bald eagles. The likely hood of watching them catch a fish increases when whale watching because there is an abundance of herring in the area and therefore more fish to catch. However this eagle picked up a rock cod which is a bottom fish and that means that it was caught and thrown to the eagle to get the photo.

 

 

River in conflict

River walking Grizzly

This sub-adult (four or five year old) grizzly is walking down-river but if you look closely at the water pushing against its legs the water is flowing up-river. The lower part of Knight Inlet’s Glendale River is a tidal river and at certain tides it provides our flat-bottom boats enough water that we can quietly move up the river to watch the grizzlies. This river is not more than 25 meters (yards) at its widest, which means when we meet a grizzly you are able to get good photos. The bears have become accustomed to meeting small boats on the river and if you are concerned about your safety just remember that as your guide I have a family and will not be taking ANY risk that jeopardize your or my life.

 

 

Extra day in Camp

Trapper Rick's view

If you choose to spend the extra day at Grizzly Bear Lodge it is spent with Trapper Rick on the Kakweikan River. This is a remote river that that requires a guide, which means that access to the public is limited. The view from the front of Rick’s small A-frame cabin can be both relaxing and exciting. Relaxing as a place to have lunch and enjoy a conversation with Rick who is so passionate about his bears and exciting when you walk down to the river in the photo and see grizzly bears feeding.

 

Orcalab – What is it?

Resident male orca

A male and female orca / killer whlaes passing close to the boat in Blackfish Sound. Blackfish is the native name for orca. In the background one can see the building of OrcaLab. From their website at http://orcalab.org/:

“The work of OrcaLab is centred on the philosophy that it is possible to study the wild without interfering with lives or habitat. A network of hydrophones, positioned around the orcas’ “core habitat”, helps us monitor their movements all year round. Supplementing the acoustic data are visual sightings of orcas as they pass OrcaLab, and reports from land observation sites staffed by OrcaLab volunteers during the summer “season”, as well as reports from other researchers and whale watchers who share observations and information.”

If you go to OrcaLabs second website at “www.orca-live.net/” and click on “OrcaLive” then click on the map “The Hanson Island area” you have a view of the area where Grizzly Bear Lodge does their whale watching.

 

 

Good fishing for Grizzly Bears

Salmon eating grizzly

The summer of 2014 was a good summer for the grizzlies because of the early arrival of the salmon in the river. This brought more bears to the river in early August before we were viewing the grizzlies from the viewing platforms. Once we were in the platforms the bears that were fishing close had many salmon to choose from and tended to stay longer in the area. As this photo shows there were often salmon floating around the bears so they had their pick for lunch.

 

 

See you at the Lodge

I (one of the guides at the lodge) have signed off the blog for awhile, to go to work where the Internet reception makes it hard to upload pictures. I leave you with a few comments. The majority of the pictures used in the blog were taken with a Pentax Optio 6MP 3X Optical Zoom (a good, but small pocket digital) the pictures attributed to Glen came from a much better camera and of course the guest pictures are from a variety of cameras.

Nursing Grizzly Bear

Nursing Grizzly

Not hard to tell that this is a nursing mother. The same mother in the July 1st posting and she has three cubs. This grizzly and her cubs were frequently fishing next to the viewing stands. There are three viewing times on the Glendale River set by government agencies and we are one of two lodges that has permission to use this area. Our time is between ten and noon daily. The scheduled use of the stands brings a routine for the bears and that means that many of the big males leave these times for the mothers, cubs and sub-adult bears. We do see a few large males but even though this is great for the guests if a large male is fishing most other bears remain in the bush until it leaves. As a guide I prefer ten or twelve grizzlies to one large male.

 

 

View from the Lodge

Sunrse at the Lodge

 

Grizzly Bear Lodge is located on Minstrel Island not far from the mouth of Knight Inlet. There is no other permanent human residence on the island but we do share with blacktail deer, one or two black bears, on occasion a grizzly will visit for a day or two and once we saw a wolf. The sunrise from the front deck does happen every day but many days it is obscured by a cloud cover. Knight Inlet is one of the longest on the BC Coast at 125 kilometers (80 miles) in length and because of its size has a microclimate that often becomes overcast in the evening. The good news is that normally by eleven o’clock the sun appears. As nice as it is to have the sun it does make it harder for good pictures when you are getting the reflection off the water.

 

Humpback Whales Feeding

Humpbacks Lunging

The humpback whales that migrate between Hawaii and Alaska have started to find that there is an abundance of food (herring) in the waters at the mouth of Knight Inlet. Our lodge in located on Knight Inlet 32 Kilometer (20 miles) from this area and it has become the center for humpback viewing. Five or six years ago a good day with humpbacks was four or five while now an average day is a dozen. With more whales comes more competition for the food so now it is common to have several whales lunge feeding on the same school of herring and this makes your guide happy because you are happy.