It is late August and a grizzly bear and cub in Knight Inlet’s Glendale River wait for the tide to rise and bring in another school of salmon. The salmon school in the bay and with higher water they move up the river to the spawning areas. We are in our viewing boat also waiting for the salmon and the excitement of watching grizzlies fish.
No this is not a cub but rather an adult grizzly bear sitting in sedge grass. The grass in the estuary of Knight Inlet’s Glendale River is better than a meter (3 feet) high. In the spring bears come to this area to feed on the sedge grass is it up to 25% protein and as the berries in the coastal forests are not yet available this is the reason why grizzly bears are in the estuary. At lower tides when more of the beach is exposed the bears will spent more time turning over rocks in the inter-tidal zone looking for food high in protein such as crab, clams, barnacles, amphipods and other tiny invertebrates. Much a grizzly’s time in the spring is spent in search of food this changes in the fall once the salmon arrive and food is more abundant. Photo by guest Debbie Zygmunt.
