Grizzly Bear and Wildlife Tour Blog

We offer an exceptional fly-in lodge for Grizzly Bear Watching and Whale Watching in British Columbia.

Learn about What’s happening at the Lodge, view our British Columbia’s Wildlife Report, read our Grizzly Bear Watching Blog and Whale Watching Blog. Learn more about a Day on the River Blog, see Our Tour Guide’s Photos & Blog and  Photos from Our Guests.

Interesting Guest Photos

humpback mouth
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On the whale watching tour from Grizzly Bear Lodge we are fortunate to view between eight and sixteen different humpback whales each trip. These whales spend their summer in our area feeding on the herring, which provides our guests with ample opportunities to watch them lunge feeding. In a lunge the humpbacks come up beneath a herring ball with mouths open as shown in James Kastelein’s photo. The baleen shown is a row of a large number of keratin plates attached to the upper jaw. These plates have a composition similar to those in human hair or fingernails. They are triangular in section with the largest, inward-facing side bearing fine hairs, which form a filtering mat. The humpback whale has about 330 pairs of dark gray baleen plates with coarse gray bristles hanging from the jaws. They are about 0.6 m (25 inches) long and 34 cm (13.5 inches) wide.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

orca spyhop good
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A Wikipedia quote    “When spyhopping, the whale rises and holds position partially out of the water, often exposing its entire rostrum and head, and is visually akin to a human treading water. Spyhopping is controlled and slow, and can last for minutes at a time if the whale is sufficiently inquisitive about whatever (or whomever) it is viewing.
Generally, the whale does not appear to swim to maintain its “elevated” position while spyhopping, instead relying on exceptional buoyancy control and positioning with pectoral fins. Typically the whale’s eyes will be slightly above or below the surface of the water, enabling it to see whatever is nearby on the surface.
Spyhopping often occurs during a “mugging” situation, where the focus of a whale’s attention is on a boat rather than on other nearby whales. Spyhopping among orcas may be to view prey species. For this a spyhop may be more useful than a breach, because the view is held steady for a longer period of time.” And thanks to James and Wendy Kastelein for the great photo.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

grizzly triplets third year
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A mother brings her second year cubs to the edge of the river by the viewing stands while another grizzly bears stands in the background. They all have the same concern and that is a larger male grizzly further down river. Fortunately at this time the larger male did not proceed up river which gave the others a chance to come and feed on the many salmon. Most guests want to see the big male grizzlies and they are a magnificent sight but they tend to keep other bears out of the viewing area.

 

 

Interesting Guest Photos

grizzlies sharing catch
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These photos provided by James and Wendy Kastelein of Australia were taken from the viewing stands on Knight Inlet’s Glendale River. In the fall, after August 24th our grizzly bear watching takes place from stands overlooking the entrance area to Department of Fisheries spawning channel. The channel was built to improve the run of Pink salmon or humpback salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha). The males develop a pronounced humped back, hence their nickname “humpies”. It is the number of salmon that return to spawn every year that attracts the grizzlies to the area and as the photos show not always to eat. Once the sub-adult siblings have caught and eaten enough fish for the morning it often becomes playtime which can be more interesting than watching them fish.

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Interesting Guest Photos

large black bear on bc beach
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James and Wendy Kastelein of Australia provide the photo taken on the evening black bear tour. The first evening in Grizzly Bear Lodge on Minstrel Island involves an evening boat ride to look for wildlife.  Top on the list is a black bear. On this evening the Kasteleins obtained several good photos as this bear stayed on the beach ignoring us for food. Although there is not much boat traffic in the area the bears accept boats as part of their environment and as long as the boaters are not aggressive the bears are good for repeated viewing.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

 

caught a fish good grizzly
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The bears of yesterday’s post may be siblings but the sharing of their catch is not an option. Even as cubs with their mother for the first two summers they did not share their mothers catch except with their mother and then under protest. A cub or sub-adult bear does not gain enough weight (fat) to survive the winter if it worries about another’s health.

 

 

Interesting Guest Photos

grizzly brothers fishing
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The fall grizzly bear watching season in Knight Inlet starts on August 24th and at this time guests are permitted into the viewing stands on the Glendale River. The stands overlook the entrance the man-made spawning channel that contains over eighty thousand salmon as well as the natural river, which may contain several hundred thousand pink salmon over the season. This photo by Alfred Bittner shows two juvenile grizzlies, likely siblings, fishing side by side in the small rapids below the stands…more tomorrow.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

good orca photo
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Alfred Bittner provides a great photo that I call “Follow the leader”. Take a close look and there is a tip of a dorsal fin just in front of this large male killer whale. Also an excellent photo as this is how an orca is identified using a picture of the right side of the orca showing its dorsal fin and the saddle patch. All the resident orcas on the BC coast are in two groups either the Northern or Southern Residents.
The website: http://wildwhales.org/killer-whale/ provides the following:
“The southern resident community consists of one clan (J clan) and 3 pods (J, K and L pods) and number only around 86 animals. They are most commonly seen in the waters around Victoria and the San Juan Islands in the summer, although they may range north to Desolation Sound and as far south as California in the winter months. Southern resident killer whales are critically endangered, due to their small population size, reliance on endangered or threatened salmon runs for prey, high toxin loads and sensitivity to boat disturbance.

The northern resident community consists of 3 clans (A, G and R) and numerous pods within each clan. It numbers around 250 animals. Northern residents are most commonly seen in the waters around the northern end of Vancouver Island, and in sheltered inlets along B.C.’s Central and North Coasts. They also range northward into Southeast Alaska in the winter months. Northern resident killer whales are also threatened by the same factors as southern residents.”

 

 

 

Interesting Guest Photos

orca dive 1
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orca dive 2
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orca dive 3
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April and Rob White of Australia provide this unique series of photos from their visit to Grizzly Bear Lodge. It is a set of six photos of, which of choose three to make it interesting. This is the best set that I have viewed in my ten years as a guide for the lodge. It is known that humpback whales are identified by the markings on the underside of their tail. The key to this sequence is the first photo and the tip of the dorsal fin, which is visible in the water in front of the tail. This fin is about two meter (six feet) tall and belongs to an orca or killer whale. This orca passed beneath our boat and surfaced about five meters away and then dove and Rob manage to obtain a very unique set of photos.

 

 

 

Interesting Guest Photos

grizzly in grass
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Debbie’s photo of a grizzly bear sitting in the sedge grass of British Columbia’s Knight Inlet gives the impression of a “cute” little bear.  The “cute” may be lost when one realizes that the sedge grass in the spring is more than a meter (three feet) tall and that this is the same bear that was shown is yesterday’s posting.