Salmon Fishing - Bears!

This is what I was hoping to catch – bear actually doing the catching of the salmon.  Altho none of these will make the cover of National Geo Magazine, I think they were pretty great!  The first image was of a bear up at the top of the waterfall we were at.  There were many bear there, so each of these images (as well as the ones from the other entry) is most likely several different bears.  Each bear would catch a salmon, either eat it there or take it up into the woods to eat.  If he/she went into the woods, we couldn’t tell if the bear that returned from the woods was that same bear or another one!

This image is, I believe, the same bear that ran in the previous entry.  This catch happened shortly after the “truce” when the dominant bear went back to his favorite fishing spot.  This bear remained where he was and patiently selected just the perfect salmon to munch on.

Here’s another bear in the process of catching his tasty morsel!  It was really interesting to watch them  as they selected just the salmon they wanted.  As you could see from the other entry, there was really an embarrassment of riches for them.  And, of course, they would miss, and the salmon would get to live just a wee bit longer, but those don’t make for very exciting images! 

Here’s a great shot of a bear just as he raised his head up out of the river, victorious in his catch!  I took lots and lots of images to get just this one, so I’m pretty happy with it.  And, the salmon is in a good photographic position, too!

This is the “perfect moment” of this entire visit.  Perfect position, perfect lighting, and just truly captures the feeling of what it was like watching these magnificent creatures in their element!

Enjoy!

Bear Behavior

And, now, the bears!!!  We actually saw a couple of bears in the woods during the ¼ mile trek to their fishing spot, but I didn’t capture them with my camera – they moved too fast (in the opposite direction, thank goodness) and the trees sort of obscured them.  However, the image above is of the salmon, which is what they are fishing for!  You can barely see the water for the fish!  And, for those of you who might feel bad for the salmon caught by the bears, keep this in mind.  They are heading upstream to die anyway – it’s Nature.

This was the first bear we spotted, and he spotted us first.  It’s easy to forget that these are truly wild bear, and could really harm or kill us should they perceive us a threat or competition for this food.  There are black bear on this island, and they are not known for attacking humans, especially during this time of the year, when other food sources are much more prevalent.  Thank goodness!  This “little guy” is probably about 200 pounds or so!

Here are a couple of bears, with one establishing a sort of dominance over the other.  Joshua, our guide, explained that the bear that views itself as smaller, weaker, etc., than another bear it encounters will be the one to back off.  It appears that’s what’s happening here.

Here they seem to have established a tentative “truce”.  I don’t know if you can see it from this image, but they are both keeping an eye on each other.  I think it hindered their ability to fish because they didn’t stay this way for long.  The bear at the lower portion of the image moved back to his “regular” fishing position, and happily seemed to be catching his fill!

This bear was right below our viewing stand, and clearly saw us.  He watched us for several minutes, but then seemed to decide that we weren’t worthy of him asserting his dominance (thank you!), and slowly resumed fishing.  He did look back a few times, tho, as if to remind us that he could have his way with us should he want to.

Enjoy!