This was the zoom on the bear behind the branch on yesterday’s posting. Not bad for a small camera. Tomorrow’s posting will show a photo from the stands from another guide.
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.
Viewing Platform 3 of 5
The grizzly bears in this photo are approximately 15 meters (yards) from the railing of the viewing platform. The photo was taken with my small Pentax Optio WPi camera without using the zoom. Tomorrow a little zoom.
Viewing Platform 2 of 5
The everyday view from the viewing platform is salmon. These salmon are waiting to enter the spawning channel that is located approximately one hundred meters (yards) to the right of the picture in the previous posting. We drive along the edge of the spawning channel on the way to the platforms and normally see six or eight grizzly bears before we start our bear watching morning. The salmon are the reason you are our guests because without the salmon there would be no photo for tomorrow’s posting.
Viewing Platform 1 of 5
Grizzly Bear Lodge’s grizzly bear tours use a viewing platform located on Knight Inlet’s Glendale River. After August 24th we are permitted to drive up a logging road along the river to use the stands and watch bears catching salmon that are waiting to enter the man made spawning channel. The stands are covered and have room to move around. They were designed, by the other lodge that used the stands at a different time, for twelve guest but our lodge is much smaller so we have a maxim of five guests per viewing time. The next four posting will show you what the guests are watching.
Grizzly Bear Parasite
Not necessarily the most pleasant site but it is a fact of wildlife viewing involving grizzly bears. Two or three time a year grizzlies will appear with tapeworms. Toward the end of summer and into fall, bears sometimes shed a type of tapeworm, commonly called the broad fish tapeworm. As this photo shows it can sometimes be seen trailing behind them. Grizzly bears can become infected by the tapeworm from eating raw salmon. The physical effect of bears harbouring tapeworm parasites is insignificant to the bear’s health. This will slightly stress the bear, but generally it is not advantageous for the parasite to kill the host, since that would also result in the death of the parasite.
A Wary Grizzly Bear
The first half of the viewing season from Grizzly Bear Lodge is spent in the Glendale River and it’s estuary. We travel up Knight Inlet in the morning for about an hour and fifteen minutes and tie to a float in the mouth of the river and transfer to a smaller 5.5 meter (yard) skiff to travel up the river. The river is a pathway for the bears as they are either coming to the estuary for the sedge grass and to turn over rock in search of other protein or returning to high ground as the tide rises. As the tide rises your guide is in the water slowly pulling the skiff up river were we meet bears either coming or going.
Fog Bound Stellar Sea Lions
August whale watching can have some interesting mornings as the warm days will produce fog for the following morning. The fog may be patchy and is gone by noon but it does not prevent us from leaving the dock as we have radar and GPS. The fog does produce some unique photos such as this one with stellar sea lions on the rocks near Vancouver Island’s Telegraph Cove. The sea lions are now in the area most of the summer whereas in past years they were only passing through in June and September on their migration between California and Alaska.
Orca Timing – A Little Off
Always looking for the interesting / different photo to post on the blog and this photo fills that category. This orca seems to be “off” on its technique of coming out for a breath of air. Normally the blow occurs after the back has cleared the water and not before. I guess the important part is that it is not inhaling at this point but waiting until it is clear to do so.
Grizzly Family Fishing
This mother and her cubs had spent the better part of an hour fishing behind the viewing stands on the Glendale River. After August 25th we are permitted to travel by truck to the viewing stands, which are about a fifteen-minute ride from the dock where we moor our boat. The stands have the natural river on two sides and the entrance to a man-made spawning channel on the third. These bears were catching and eating salmon when they decided to move off into the surrounding area likely to nurse. Even though the cubs were eating salmon they will still nurse. “Grizzly bear cubs will nurse for up to three years. Depending on when a grizzly mother bear wants to wean her cubs, a decision often made when she decides it’s time to mate again, she will keep producing milk for up to three years. However, grizzly cubs begin eating solid food from an early age and can very quickly become not dependent on mama’s milk.” From the Get Bear Smart Society website
Grizzly Bear Faceoff? 2 of 2
The clouds moved then the sun came out and the grizzlies decided to play. We were sitting in a 5.5 meter (yard) long skiff in the Glendale River estuary as these two siblings spent more than a half-hour entertaining us. It was late August, a warm day, and a great day to be playing in the water especially if you were wearing a fur coat.
