Tag Archives: Bears

Busy black bear

Black Bear ans cubs

Any bear with three cubs has a full time job to find enough to eat to produce the milk to keep a family fed. This photo was taken by Glen one of the camp guides on a morning tour to view grizzly bears. The rock ledge on the way up Knight Inlet is cover with barnacles and seaweed. The barnacles are food for the bear and by looking as the white area (that is where the barnacles have been scrapped away and eaten) it is easy to see that this bear has been busy. The cubs being to young to scrap the barnacles wait for mum to provide the milk.

 

Grizzly Bear Waiting

Grizzly Bear Fishing

The splash in the lower right corner of this photo has the grizzlies full attention. The splash is from a school of salmon moving up river and this means it is lunchtime. The grizzly is waiting in a deep pool for the salmon to cross over a shallow bar. In most cases the grizzly would be in the shallow water as it is easier to catch the salmon but not all bears are created equal and this bear soon learned that deep water is not the best place to wait.

 

Grizzly Bear Tour Seasons

Grizzlt in Glendale Estuary

The grizzly bears tours from our lodge have one important date and that is August 24th.  After to the 24th we are permitted to travel up the Glendale River valley and use the viewing platforms, which overlook the manmade spawning channel (October 24th posting an example). Prior to the 24th we use a 5.5 meter (yard) skiff to view grizzlies in the river estuary and along the banks of the river (October 23rd posting an example). Today’s post could be from either viewing time because going up to the viewing platform does not mean that we abandoned a tour up the river, if time permits.

 

Grizzly bear at the gate

Grizzly wanting INThe viewing stands Grizzly Bear Lodge uses in the fall are located on Knight Inlet’s Glendale River. The stands are large enough to accommodate twelve guests but we only take a maximum of five per tour. The approach ramp to the to the viewing platform is a gated steel cage for a reason. The reason is the subadult bear (that equates to teenage human male) who are curious and like to investigate their surroundings. If this were a zoo we would be the ones in a cage.

 

Waiting for Salmon

Grizzly Sitting

The viewing stands we use after August 24 offer some interesting photo opportunities.  In the case it is a grizzly taking advantage of a strategically placed rock to rest while it waits for salmon to move up river into the spawning channel. The height provides a better view of the approaching salmon and a good position to launch an attack.

Grizzly on Whale Watching Tour

Grizzly on Tour

The grizzly bear population of Knight Inlet is healthy and growing. Over the past five years the number of sightings in the lower portion of the inlet near our lodge has increased. This past summer a grizzly visited our island for about a week before it moved on down the inlet. This photo was taken coming back from a whale watching day when we found a grizzly swimming between islands. It was working its way to Johnstone Strait, which separated the mainland from Vancouver Island that now has a small population of grizzlies. Historically there have never been grizzly bears on the Island but that changed six years ago when the first bear appeared near Kelsey Bay and more have arrived every year.

 

 

Black Bear Tours

Black Bear

The idea of a black bear tour is a little misleading as every tour could end up with a black bear sighting. However on your first evening at the lodge we spend an hour or more going for an evening tour to find black bear. The success of the trip depends mostly on the tide because if the tide is high there is no beach and therefore no bears. But this photo shows that some evenings are successful and the reason that part of the bear is cut off is I was trying to show the location of the bear to the boat by getting the bow search light in the picture (that white arc in the lower left corner).

 

 

Grizzly Family Time

Grizzly bear family

Most grizzlies’ first year cubs prefer not to be in the water. When they first come to the beach in the spring and are required to swim along some to the steep bank beaches the mother are forced to abandoned them to force them into the water. After August 24th the viewing activity moves up the river after the salmon arrive. In this photo the cub made it to the rock near the fishing hole but choose a dry perch. As long as mom came by to check on a regular basis all was good.

 

 

Hungry Grizzly Bears

Young grizzlies feeding

Unlike the grizzly bear in the October 4th posting these bears are eating everything. There are two reason for their hunger: first the photo was taken in late August so the salmon have just arrived and second these juvenile bears are not the most experienced fisher so they eat everything they catch. Give these bear a few years and some experience and they will become more selective.

 

 

Selective Feeding

Grizzly bear Eating

Depending on the time of the year grizzlies have selective eating habits.  When the salmon first appear in the coastal rivers any salmon and all of the salmon is eaten. This also applies near the end of the salmon run if the grizzly bears have not gained enough weight for hibernation. In between these two times the bear can be “fussy”. It starts with rejecting the male salmon because they do not have the fat rich roe (eggs). The popular body parts are the brain, skin with its layer of fat beneath and the roe. Often the remainder of the salmon is left on the riverbank for a less selective bear or for scavengers such as seagulls, crows, ravens, bald eagles, and pine martin. This grizzly as one can see by its size has reached the “roe only” stage of eating salmon.