Grizzly Watching

Yes there are four first year cubs and this is one of two sets we have seen in our viewing area this year. Twins and triplets are common but four is still rare. After mating, the female may be pregnant, but that does not mean she will give birth to cubs. Bears have developed a process called delayed implantation. The fertilized egg develops into a small embryo called a blastocyst. This is where the interesting stuff begins. After this brief period of development, of the fertilized egg suddenly stops growing and simply floats freely in the uterus for several months. If a sow is in peak condition when she heads into her winter den, the embryo implants in the uterus and begin to develop. She’ll wake up during January or February to give birth. Healthy bears tend to have multiple births so this indicated we have a very healthy population of grizzlies.

A mother grizzly bear is very protective of her cubs. In this case the cubs had been very active for about an hour and decided to take a nap on the gravel bar. This was fine until a large male moved down from the upper pool to the lower where the cubs were located. At that point the mother positioned herself to stop any interference with the nap. As to how many cubs see tomorrows post…

This does not look to exciting until you hear the background story: The dark grizzly was a large male that my guests had named “grumpy”. He came into the viewing area where there was about twelve bears and started to push his weight around and made several juvenile gears move further up the river. The blond bear is a mother with two second year cubs. Lesson – never mess with a mother. She came at the male, this was about ten meters from our cameras, so we could hear her low growl and the clacking of her teeth. The male thought better and moved off and left the other bears to fish. He never left the area but had a much better attitude for the rest of the morning.

For perspective the pile of rocks at the bottom of this photo are the same pile of rocks at the top left corner of the photo on the December 1^st post. That means that this grizzly is less than 15 meters (yards) from the viewing platform and still doing what bears do in the wild. To the grizzly bears we are part of the natural surroundings and are ignored unless someone forgets to turn off their flash or gets to excited and raises their voice. We are predictable that is why the viewing times are set each day.

From late May to August 24^th grizzly bear watching from our lodge takes place on the shores of Knight Inlet and in the estuary of the Glendale River. Grizzlies alternate between eating berries, digging roots, grazing on sedge grass and rolling rock in search of protein. This low tide offers a good beach for this sub-adult grizzly to spend hours on the beach to obtain enough food to keep it alive until the salmon arrive in mid-August.

Twelve minutes later on the same day a mother grizzly with three cubs came out of the bush where the cubs are standing. She was checking the area behind the rocks for salmon before moving into the holding pool and closer to the viewing stands.

The viewing platform used by Grizzly Bear Lodge on the Glendale River has the natural river on one side and end and the holding pool to the salmon spawning channel on the other side. This photo shows the river in the background and the entrance to the holding pool. This is also the easiest access for the grizzlies as they walk up river. In this case the juvenile grizzly on the log had just moved quickly from the gravel bar to the log and then into the bush. A few minutes later after the larger adult male had moved into the pool it came back out to see if it was safe to come and fish. It was and it did.

As in yesterdays post this mother grizzly had been turning over rocks. This inter-tidal zone “food” is high in protein and is made up of crab, clams, barnacles, amphipods and other tiny invertebrates. The “beach food” is important because plant food is relatively scarce during spring and bears will continue to loose weight until well into June. This photo from July 23 shows her triplets taking a break while mother continues to graze on the protein rich sedge grass.

This photo was taken from the viewing stands on September 2 (we are permitted to use these platforms after August 24^th). This mother grizzly had been fishing in the pool next to the stands for about forty-five minutes while the cubs roamed the gravel bar. (Note that the cubs to not like to get wet unless force by their mother to cross the river.) The four cubs finally tired of their play and curled up for a nap while heir mother come closer to stand guard.