Tag Archives: Grizzly Bears

This photo form one stand toward the other shows an interesting occurrence.  The mother grizzly with two two-year old cubs had passed our viewing platform and walked down the road toward the other stand only to come face to face with another bear walking out of the spawning channel area to the natural river on the other side of the road. What happened? Nothing, the bears passed and went on their way. The abundance of food in the area means that there is little aggression between grizzlies as long each respects the other’s comfort zone. A large male may dominate the viewing area for a while but it just means that the other bears wait until it leaves before coming to feed.

From August 25th to early October the grizzly bear tour from Grizzly Bear Lodge goes to the Glendale River on Knight Inlet on uses one of two viewing platforms located near a man made salmon spawning channel. The two stands are less than seventy-five meters (yards) apart and each provide excellent opportunities for close up bear viewing. The above photo provided by UK’s Lynn Morris shows a grizzly bear walking beneath the viewing stand. It does show how close the bears come to the stand but not the “grandeur” of the bear….. view of other stand tomorrow

This photo provided by Lynn Morris is one most guest want to capture. The grizzly with a salmon in it’s mouth the other being a video of a grizzly bear catching the salmon. If you enlarge the photo you will notice many salmon in the water in front of the bear and yesterday’s post shows the abundance of salmon in this section of the river.

After some time in the water the mother grizzly and cub moved up the beach toward the river mouth. One can see that the tide has started to rise and the beach is disappearing and this means that the bears will move up toward the shallower estuary and river mouth. Fortunately once we arrive by boat from the lodge we switch to a large flat bottom skiff which permits us to follow the bears as they move into this shallow area.  This enables good close up pictures from a stable boat, which allows guests to move about without fear of tipping or rocking. Yesterdays posted photo and today’s are just two of the many provide by Marc & Solange

Mid-August can be quite warm in Knight Inlet’s Glendale Cove where we watch the grizzly bears as they come to the beach in search of food either protein from turning over rocks or the sedge grass that grows in the river estuary. The Cove is a one and a quarter hour boat ride from the lodge along the shore of Knight Inlet. The Glendale River mouth attracts grizzly bears that spend spring and summer feeding in the area and many are mothers with cubs. If you wore a fur coat in the summer you might want to spend some time in the water on a play date with mom. Marc & Solange visiting from France provided this photograph.

The abundance of salmon mentioned in yesterday’s post is also the reason for the number of cubs we see from the viewing platforms. Although the grizzly bear count for the Glendale River area is more than forty-five bears, once the salmon have arrived to spawn, there are sufficient salmon to satisfy the hunger of all the bears. That is to say there is not much aggression between bears for fishing rights. There are three time slots for using the viewing stands, ours being from 10:00 to 12:00, for a total of six hours a day. The larger male bears are shyer and less likely to appear during this time allowing the mothers bring their cubs to fish and feed without fear from the males. As this picture from James O’Donoghue of Great Britain shows a mother and cubs coming for lunch.