Tag Archives: salmon

Third – TWO for one – grizzly bear and salmon

Weir fishing

This could actually be a three for one photo. The unfortunate salmon in the grizzly bears mouth that will not live to spawn, the salmon coming over the small falls to the right and the third salmon behind the bears shoulder that is just clearing the water and coming up stream. The viewing stands on Knight Inlet’s Glendale River are used after August 24th and provide great opportunities for interesting photos even if the interesting part is a result of chance. The guests always say one can never have too many photos to take home while the guides are trying to encourage them to put down the cameras for a few minutes and enjoy all the sights not just those seen through the camera lens. The stands are located so that the action is 360 degrees not just the small arc of the camera.

Pink salmon in the Glendale River

Pink SalmonThe reason the grizzly bears travel over a hundred miles through the Great Bear Rainforest of BC to the area of the Glendale River is the number of pink or humpy salmon that return each year to the man-made spawning channel. This photo by Lynn Morris shows the abundance of the salmon during the peak of the run. The travel distance was documented about ten years ago when ten bears were fitted with radio (GPS) collars to determine their den area to see if proposed logging would do any harm.

 

Salmon in BC rivers

The river in this case is the Glendale River, which empties into Knight Inlet. Our lodge’s grizzly bear watching tours run up Knight Inlet to the viewing stands on the river. In spite of all the fish in the river this is not an easy picture to take. Fish do not announce their intentions so it is “snap and hope”. Faithful seagulls are waiting for the remains of a grizzly feed or possibly fish eggs drifting in the current.