2008 KATMAI BEAR TRIP REPORT: PART 5 (GEOGRAPHIC HARBOUR - INDIVIDUAL BEARS)

Al (a.k.a. Scarface) - the alpha boar in Geographic during our stay in 2008.

One of the big stars of Geographic was a big, heavily scarred male that we called “Al” (as in Al Pacino - Scarface). He appeared to be the dominant bear, as all other bruins in the area gave him wide berth. While we never saw any bears fighting at Geographic, the evidence of some serious combat was obvious.

A boar with a serious flesh wound. Injuries like this typically heal very quickly.

On one of our last days in Katmai, we observed a large boar with a flap of flesh peeled back from a large, open wound on its hind quarters. Every adult boar had war wounds. In most cases, these were gashed on the forelegs or wounds around the neck area. One bear had a gash on its head that almost reached the eye (at first we thought the eye had been damaged). While everything seemed fairly copasetic during our stay, the area was no doubt an arena from some terrific bruin battles.

A large boar bearing wounds on the forelegs and around the neck - war wounds from intense bruin battling!

Grizzly Aggression

Stonorov and Stokes (1972) found that there were four situations in which aggression most often occurs in brown bear aggregations. They were: 1. when one bear moves too close to another bear (invades personal space) 2. when one bear loses a challenge but then redirects its aggression toward a nearby bear (displacement aggression) 3. when two bears compete for a preferred fishing site 4. when two strange bears meet.

Stonorov and Stokes describes what happen during an intense, aggressive encounter between two bears that are similar in social ranking. The first thing that occurs is the bears confront one another – the two brown bears face each other with the front legs stiffened, the heads are lowered slightly and the movements occur in slow motion, the ears are laid back, both have their mouths wide open (this exposes the canines) and there is excess saliva production.

One of two things may happen at this point – one of the bears may back down or one or both bears may charge one another. When charging occurs one or both bears run at each other, the head is lowered and the ears are back and the mouth is open slightly. If neither bear breaks off the charge and retreats at this point, the big bears will come to blows. The bruins may swipe at each other with their fore paws, bite each other (usually on the neck) or lock jaws.

When one bear has had enough, it will drop its head even lower than its opponent and begin to slowly back away. At some point, the subordinate may walk or run away. During much of the encounter, there will be lots of vocalizations.

References:

Stonorov D. and A. W. Stokes. 1972. Social behavior of the Alaska brown bear. Int. Assoc Bear Res. & Mang. 23: 232-242.

© Scott W. Michael

BROWN BEARS: HANDLING AND INGESTING FISH PREY

A large boar gives its salmon prey a hug before "processing" it for ingestion.

Grizzlies use a number of different handling techniques when feeding on salmon. In most cases, the savvy “fisherbear” will grasp its prize in its jaws and carry it from the waterway to the shore, a gravel bar or surrounding grassy meadow/woodland (subordinate grizzlies, in the presence of conspecifics, are often more likely to move farther from the capture site than larger, more dominant bears). They then place their catch on the ground and stand on it with the fore paws. How the prey fish is processed may vary from one individual to the next or from one location to another. In many cases the first thing a bear will do is bite down on the posterior region of the fish and remove the tail section. Another body tissue targeted early in the handling process is the skin. To skin its quarry, the bear will grasp the skin with the incisors and pull upward, peeling the integument from the salmon’s body.

If food is in short supply (e.g., it is early in the salmon run or if fish numbers are down) the bear will consume the entire fish. If food is abundant, the bruin may select the choicest parts of the fish and leave much of its behind for scavenging birds, other mammals or even other bears (e.g., subordinate individuals or those that are poor at fishing). As mentioned in other posts, the skin is preferred as are the brains, but rather than ingesting the entire head, the bear often bites through the top of the cranium and laps out the brain or plucks them out with its incisors (see video footage below).

Not all bears take the time to leave the stream to eat their prize. It is not uncommon to see a bear, standing in knee deep water, clamping the fish against the front foreleg with the opposite paw (some bears employ this technique when eating fish on shore). The bear then rips the fish apart, one bite at a time. If the water where a fish is captured is shallow enough, some bears will pin the fish to the stream bed, while in a state of repose, and then stick their head underwater and rip pieces from their piscine prize (the bear will raise its head to masticate and then submerge to take another bite).

I have noticed that in many cases the fish rarely struggle much after being trapped in the bear’s jaws. They seem to go limp. They may flop about if the bear should drop them on the shore before pinning them down to eat, but otherwise they resist very little while in the jaws of the bruin. (I did see occasions where they fish would struggle if a bear bit down on the upper back.)

In the video featured below, you will see various fishing methods and some of these handling methods employed by a number of different Katmai brown bears. A few things to look for: there is a sequence of video that shows a big brown bear deftly removing the brain from a fish. There is a scarred, big boar diving into a deep river pool from the shoreline and submerging in an attempt to capture its slippery quarry (he finally succeeds in capturing a "spent" fish in the video and stands on its hind feet as it tears the fish apart). Toward the end of the video, you will see a large boar launching some of its great bulk from the river and plunging back into the water with fore legs outstretched. At one point, it has herded a big school of salmon along the river bank and appears to be trying to push some of the fish onto the shoreline. Turn up the sound and enjoy!



© Scott W. Michael

2008 KATMAI BEAR TRIP REPORT: PART 3 (GEOGRAPHIC HARBOUR - INDIVIDUAL BEARS)

A sow with a first (spring) cub. Bother were very flighty. At one point, the cub ran into the tall grass and it took the nervous mother 20 to 30 seconds to relocate her progeny.

During our stay at Geographic Harbour, we spotted one sow with a first year (spring) cub, both of which were quite flighty. The sow had large, white fringed ears and her cub looked very healthy (it was quite chubby!). The first time we saw them, they made a brief appearance at the river when four or five other big bears were around. Their stay was brief, being cut short when the nervous cub was startled and dashed into the tall grass. Mother gave chase and after 20 to 30 anxious seconds was able to relocate her frightened offspring. The pair disappeared after that, apparently in search of safer pastures in which to feed.

On our last day at Katmai, this sow and her cub reappeared. The mother’s desire to increase her nutrient intake apparently overcame her concern about exposing her cub to conspecifics. The mother succeeded in catching a few fish, with the cub trailing right behind her (this includes venturing into the rapid moving water in the center of the stream). The cub also ate some its mother’s catch. It is sad to think that this tubby little bear has about a 40 % chance of surviving to adulthood.

Ginger Bear - a young bear, possibly chased off early from its mother. This is one of many pink salmon this little bear was able to capture.

On our second day at Geographic, we observed a small bear that cautiously made its way to the river. It appeared to be a young bear – possibly a runty three-year old. We speculated that it may have been run off by its mother prematurely or possibly it had somehow lost its maternal parent? It came to the river to fish and was successful in its efforts. Rather than eating it near the stream bank, the little bear grabbed its salmon by the tail and sought solitude in the tall grass. When fishing, it was very aware of its larger ursid neighbors, no doubt cognizant of its greater vulnerability because of its small size. This bear had a very distinct appearance – it was rather skinny and had large ears (it almost had a fox-like look about it). We dubbed it Ginger Bear because of its lighter pelage. We were to encounter ginger bear on a couple of occasions (more on this bear later).

MARINE MAMMALS ON THE MENU

A veritable brown bear buffet! Photo taken by Scott W. Michael.

It looked like a big, white amorphous blob at first glance, but after further investigation one could make out the mouth-end of the beast, the flukes and flippers. It was a humpback whale that had washed up on the shore of Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park, Kodiak (Alaska) about a week before we searched it out. We had heard reports that the whale had been deposited by winds and waves on the Kodiak coast, but finding the rotting blubber-laden beast was to prove a bit of a challenge. When we visited the local rangers station, they didn’t seem too eager to tell us where it was. After further probing, they finally shared the approximate location. As we left the office, a ranger mumbled “Watch out for bears.” We concluded this is why they were hesitant to share the cetacean’s resting place - they did not want to have to deal with a problems that can occur when people and food hoarding bears cross-paths.

It turns out that dead whales are a favorite of coastal brown bears in parts of coastal and insular Alaska. The tons of rotting blubber, flesh and whale organs can produce an olfactory beacon that can reach the nasal epithelium of a brown bear many miles away (there are anecdotal accounts of bears smelling putrid whale from 20 miles away). The culinary tastes of a brown bear are not that refined, and besides whale flesh has lots of nutrients that can help a bear lay down fat for the denning period. The only drawback to eating a dead whale is the flesh can be hard to handle. The skin is so tough that even a massive brown bear can have a difficult time tearing a chunk free and masticating it. (The blubber layer of a whale’s flesh can be as thick as 43 to 50 cm!)

A whale carcass can attract many bears, as was the case on the California coast centuries ago. In the book “California Grizzly” (1955) the authors share the following:

Those (ed. grizzly bears) living near the seacoast were attracted to the bonanza supply where ever a whale washed ashore – and the one-time abundance of whales in our coastal waters probably made this a not uncommon event. The first reports of bears eating this food was by the Vizcaíno party at Monterey in 1602; a very large whale had gone ashore, “ and the bears came by night to dine on it” (Wagner, 1929). Revere (1849) wrote that the carcass of a whale, thrown upon the beach, will attract a “regiment of bears” – and Kotzebue (1921) used the term countless “troops.”

On the shores of Kodiak Island and along the Katmai coast, groups of brown bears feed on moribund whales, while on the Kenai Peninsula, bears of various age classes are reported to move to Bristol Bay to scavenge on dead gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) (Glenn and Miller, 1980). In the Yukon, grizzly bears have been observed to scavenging on Beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) carcasses. Troyer (2005) reports seeing 12 bears feeding on a gray whale carcass at the same time (there were 18 bears in the immediate vicinity). He states that all of the bears worked over the carcass, only occasionally engaging in brief altercations during the feast. Some bears would leave, only to have their place taken over by another bear. Bear continued feeding on it for a week, at which time the remains of the carcass were carried away by the tide. There are reports of observers seeing brown bears entering or appearing from a hole in a large whale carcass. Apparently, the bears entered the bloated whale to feed on the internal organs or chew at the muscle from the inside. After gorging themselves with whale flesh, brown bears may roll on the odoriferous carcass. The function of this behavior (which, unfortunately, is also a habit they share in common in domestic canines) is not known.

Brown bears occasionally capture live pinnipeds, like these harbor seals. Photo by Scott W. Michael

Not only are moribund marine mammals consumed, brown bears have actually been known to captured and kill pinnipeds. Of course, polar bears are well known form their seal-eating habits. They have developed hunting strategies and physical adaptations to effectively exploit this resource. Grizzlies, on the other hand, feed on these animal opportunistically. If a hungry bear encounters a hauled out seal that it can get to before the latter can reach the water, it may attempt to subdue it. For example, grizzlies have been known to eat harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) along the Alaskan Peninsula and in the Northwest Territories of Canada. They are more susceptible to bear attack than some other pinnipeds (e.g., sea lions) because they are much more cumbersome and would have a more difficult time escaping if they are too far from the water’s edge. Seals are also more likely to be found along sandy shorelines, where bears sometimes hunt. That said, in most cases, seals haul out on small islets along the shore – habitats that are not often visited by grizzlies. There are also rare reports of big coastal brown bears taking on walruses (this has been reported on the Kenai Peninsula) (Glenn and Miller, 1980).

(Unfortunately, it turned out we never did encounter any bears on the Fort Abercrombie humpback carcasses the day we visited it, but I would not be surprised if it was eventually located and fed upon by opportunistic brown bears.)

References:

Glenn, L. P. and L. H. Miller. 1980. Seasonal movements of an Alaska Peninsula brown bear population. Int. Conf. Bear Res. And Manage. 4:307-312.

Check out these videos of brown bears feeding on dead whales:

A mother brown bear and her offspring feed on a whale carcass in Japan. Click here.

A group of brown bears feeding on a whale carcass on coast of Kodiak Island, includes wallowing on dead cetacean (please pardon the silly commentary). Click here.

© Scott W. Michael

IGNORANT "BEARANOIA" COLUMN AND INTELLIGENT RESPONSE!

Bear attacks hit record high in Alaska
by Karl Vick - Aug. 17, 2008 10:01 AM
The Washington Post

EAGLE RIVER, Alaska - Most times, in Alaska, the bear eats you.

But this summer, in a record year for maulings, Devon Rees managed a draw with the grizzly that leapt onto him as he sauntered home between a stream brimming with salmon and the busiest highway in the state.

"Bear comes flying out, gets its fight on," said Rees, 18, nursing his wounds on the couch of his grandmother's trailer perhaps 60 yards from the scene of the Aug. 4 battle. Bandages covered puncture wounds on the inside of both his thighs, and blood seeped through the gauze around one elbow. His jeans lay in shreds on the floor. His left eye was puffy from the swat of a massive paw.

"She was moving around like a dog will when it's fighting," said the 5-foot-11-inch, 215-pound Rees, who had been at a friend's house until 2 a.m. watching a movie called "Never Back Down." "It was fist to claw."

In a typical year, Rees would stand out as the Anchorage area's one and only mauling victim. These days, he's just a face in a crowd of them, notable chiefly for defying expert advice that playing dead is the best way to survive after spooking a grizzly.

At least eight Alaskans have been battered by bears this year, with three maulings in five days in early August. And though no human fatalities have been recorded, the summer of the bear is testing Alaskans' carefully calibrated relationship with wildlife, an evolving attitude that differs from views in the Lower 48, where grizzlies run half as large.

"Most places in Alaska don't have a persistent problem with bear or moose, because if it's anywhere near the village, they shoot it, no questions asked," said Rick Sinnott, the Alaska Fish and Game Department biologist charged with reconciling the 350,000 humans who reside around Alaska's biggest city with the wildlife who live there, too. "It's the Last Frontier mentality: You don't tolerate any risk from wild animals."

But at least until this summer, Anchorage residents were more inclined to live and let live, many residents being from "outside" and intrigued by the sight of moose wandering through the city - as well as by the predators that stalk them.

"The joke used to be, Anchorage isn't too bad because it's only two hours from Alaska," said Sean Farley, a bear biologist with the Fish and Game Department. "The truth is, Alaska is right here. We've got bears. We got moose. We got wolves. You name it."

And this summer, a poor season for salmon has made the bears loiter longer at Anchorage streams and be less tolerant of interruption.

"If you don't get enough to eat, you get cranky," Farley said.

The first attack, on June 29, was one of the worst. Petra Davis, 15, was cycling in a marathon bike race at 1 a.m. on a trail beside a salmon stream in the city's Far North Bicentennial Park. In the darkness, with the wind whipping the cottonwood trees, she may have careened broadside into a mama grizzly. It chewed through her bike helmet, crushed her trachea and cut into her shoulder, torso, buttocks and thigh.

"She was on the ground, sitting up, bloody, her cellphone out," said Sinnott, who heard a recording of the call Davis managed to place to 911. "She was apologizing because she had a hard time talking."

She got out the word "bear." Another rider directed paramedics.

Suspicion centered on a grizzly sow with two cubs that had been the subject of a half-dozen reports in the area over a six-week period. One jogger said he discovered the sow running behind him and pulled himself forward as its jaws snapped shut an inch from his rear end.
The next attack came July 23, a few yards from the front door of the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge, 100 miles south of Anchorage. Abi Sisk, 21, had just stepped onto a trail in the 11 p.m. twilight. She was bending to look at flowers when a grizzly lunged.

"She heard growling, and all of a sudden it was on her," said Dan Michels, the lodge manager. A guest heard "what he thought was laughing," from the parking lot and saw the bear with Sisk's head in its mouth.

The beast ran off after the man ran toward it, waving his arms and shouting. Sisk, a housekeeper, survived, partially scalped and with a broken jaw. Since May, a dozen bears have been shot on the Kenai Peninsula after threatening humans.

"The idea of bears is so predominant and so much bigger than the animals themselves," said Sherry Simpson, a University of Alaska professor and author of a book on bears and humans.
Farley, the biologist, has worked with grizzlies weighing 1,000 pounds, and he laughed aloud at Rees' vainglory. For appreciating the overpowering strength of Ursus arctos horribilis, Farley recommended a video shot five days before Rees's encounter, in the same town, by a woman who at first mistook for her baby's cries the sounds of a moose being killed by a grizzly.

"They got to do something about these bears," said Scott Simpson, a shipping executive, pausing at the scene of the Rees attack and voicing an opinion heard more and more often around Anchorage. "I've been all over the backwoods here and never seen it like this. The prevalence this summer is just staggering."

The sense of crisis took hold on Aug. 8, four days after Rees's encounter, when at 5 p.m. Clivia Feliz jogged onto Rover's Run, the city park trail where Davis was attacked. She had run 800 feet when the ears of her border collie, Sky, went straight up. Two grizzly cubs were 30 feet ahead on the trail, sniffing the ground.

"I'm thinking, Where's the sow?' " Feliz said from her Anchorage hospital bed. Not seeing one, she turned and ran back down the trail. The cubs gave chase. Feliz veered into the woods, figuring that "if I disappear from sight, maybe the cubs will just forget, like kids."

"But they were still coming."

Before she saw the mother bear, she heard it, first on the trail, then crashing through the brush. Feliz, 51, lay down behind some dead trees. The cubs "blew right by me," but the sow veered her way.

"I could see her nose go up. She scented me."

The bear was on her in seconds. There was no growling or clicking of teeth. It just stared at Feliz, huffing, then lunged at her head and "chomped right down" on the arm Feliz brought up reflexively.

For a few seconds, the bear simply held her captive, pushing Feliz's head and shoulders with its paws and mouth but not biting.

"She was just staring at me," said Feliz, a massage therapist. "And I was thinking I should protect my vital organs, because if she bites me in the stomach, you know, a lot of blood there. I drew my legs up. There was another huff. She bit down, but she bit down very deliberately this time.

"I could feel the ribs cracking. I knew she had bit into something, like an organ." Four ribs snapped, partially collapsing a lung.

Her screams of pain did not faze the bear, which held her down a few more moments, then left the way the cubs had gone. Feliz waited a few minutes before staggering back to the trail, her right arm hanging useless, with a crushed brachial artery, her left arm held against her bleeding torso. Sky reappeared, and when they reached a road Feliz flagged down a passing car.
"I know about bears. I've lived here 12 years," she said. "I'm not blaming anybody else. The bear was the bear and did what bears do."

That sensibility remains common across a state where fishermen routinely carry guns.
"I don't see it any different than New York in rush hour: You just have to pay attention. Our cars just have hair and teeth," said Don Smith, a telephone technician packing a .45 along with his fly rods as he prepared to float the Russian River, not far from the Kenai Princess Lodge.
Grizzlies routinely fish the bright teal waters alongside humans in what "feels like joint custody," said Sherry Simpson, the professor.

In Anchorage, trails placed beside streams are used both by bears and by people who often forget that a city can also be part of the wild. Analyzing the DNA from fur collected from thistles and wires, Farley found that 20 different bears passed near the stream where Davis and Feliz were mauled. Radio-collar tracking indicated that when salmon are running, bears are almost always within 100 yards of the stream and, therefore, the trail.

"There's the problem of enhancing salmon streams that run through cities," said Simpson: "Ring the dinner bell."

_________________________________________________

Outside reporter needs to do homework on bears
by Craig Medred - August 30th, 2008
Anchorage Daily News/OUTDOORS

Let's not mince words here: Washington Post staff writer Karl Vick is an ursine illiterate.

This is not name calling, of which I generally disapprove, but a simple statement of fact.
Here is what Vick "reported" in the Sunday, Aug. 17 edition of one of America's great newspapers:

"EAGLE RIVER, Alaska -- Most times, in Alaska, the bear eats you."

In how many ways is this wrong?

Number one: Most times, in Alaska, bears and humans coexist without any thought to that old cliche that cautions "sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you." Generally, people and bears meet, look at each other, mutually go "oh-oh,'' and then retreat, or flee, in opposite directions. This happens thousands, possibly tens of thousands of times per year in this state.

Despite a widespread, paranoid belief that grizzlies are big, brown, hairy people-eaters, they are not. A whole business has been built around people viewing huge, wild grizzly bears along the Katmai Coast. It would have been gone long ago if the threat of those bears eating people was significant.

Number two: When bears do attack -- a rare event in and of itself -- they almost never eat anyone. They apparently don't consider us very good prey. Bears bite people, and then they flee. Most bears are like heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson, not Kiwi cannibals. Sometimes the injuries from bear bites are severe, but the flesh is usually still all there.

Some years back I was attacked by a grizzly bear. It had my ankle in its mouth when I shot it. It was biting, not eating.

When the attack happened, I was doing the most dangerous thing you can do in grizzly country -- sneaking quietly through the woods on the hunt for moose. I am confident that if I'd been making lots of noise I never would have gotten close enough to a whole family of grizzlies for things to get messy. They would have been long gone because it is the general policy of bears to avoid us.

They flee us, because they fear us. They fear us, because they have good reason.

Even the bears seem to understand that Vick got the first paragraph of his story 180 degrees wrong:

Most times, in Alaska the people eat the bear, or at least kill it.

ODDS FAVOR HUMANS

Not counting bears shot in defense of life and property or run down by cars in this state every year, humans kill 1,000 to 1,500 grizzly bears and about twice as many black bears. Most of the grizzlies become rugs or trophy mounts. Few people eat grizzly flesh; it's pretty rancid. But a good share of the 2,500 to 3,000 black bears reported taken by hunters each year are eaten as food.

Given these numbers, the odds are at least 100 times greater that people will get the bear than that the bear will get them.

Was Vick's claim to the contrary the end of the nonsense (or even if I thought he'd simply made a bad try at humor), I might have been able to restrain myself from calling him out on this story, but he goes on to hype the situation unjustifiably.

"But this summer,'' he writes, "in a record year for maulings....''

Says who?

The story doesn't say. It just throws the observation out there. I frankly don't know if the claim is true or not. There is no clearinghouse for bear maulings in Alaska.

Tom Smith, a former U.S. Geological Survey biologist here and now a professor at Brigham Young University in Utah, struggled to pull together a database on past maulings some years back. He admits he probably didn't get a perfect count on the number of Alaska attacks, but he got the best one out there.

It shows attacks averaging about 10 to 20 per year with peaks of 26 in the late 1990s. Have there been more than 26 people attacked by bears so far this year in Alaska?

If so, it's news to me.

This is, indeed, a record year for bear attacks in the Anchorage area, what with two unprecedented maulings at Far North Bicentennial Park within sight of downtown, and another at Eagle River. But Anchorage is not "Alaska," even if the half-million-acre Chugach State Park in the center of our broadly drawn "municipality" can provide a real taste of that fabled place.
I doubt, however, that Vick has any idea of the scope of the municipality or how much wilderness it includes back behind the strip-mall urban edge. Like so many Outside writers who buzz through town, he appears clueless to the scope and variety of the 49th state. I'm frankly tired of it. Some basic reporting might help some of these people, although even that doesn't appear to work for Vick.

"...The summer of the bear is testing Alaskans' carefully calibrated relationship with wildlife, an evolving attitude that differs from views in the Lower 48, where grizzlies run half as large,'' he writes.

I've lived here more than 30 years, and I have no idea what "Alaskans' carefully calibrated relationship with wildlife'' is, but that's not the problem.

MONSTER BEARS

The problem is the idea that Alaska is filled with monster bears twice the size of any elsewhere. The weight of grizzly bears in the American West is in the range of 400 to 600 pounds for males and 250 to 350 pounds for females. Interior Alaska grizzlies are about the same or slightly smaller, and the farther north you go in the state, the smaller, in general, the bears get.

The full-grown grizzly that killed Richard and Katherine Huffman on the Hula Hula River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2005 weighed only 300 pounds. Coastal Alaska bears are different. They are so much larger than Interior bears that Alaska bears were long divided into two categories -- grizzlies and coastal brown bears. That was until taxonomists finally figured out that a coastal brown bear is just a really well fed grizzly. The bears are now referred to in many circles as brown/grizzly bears.

Along the Katmai coast, big boars will indeed get to 1,200 pounds, maybe even more. Locally, here on the inland coast, a 900-pounder would be considered a big boy. That is only about a third again as large as one of those Lower 48 males. But, more importantly, weight tells the least important part of the story.

Those huge coastal grizzlies are animals that get that way by stuffing themselves with salmon. It would be an overstatement to describe these bears as "fat and happy" for most of the summer, but at least they don't come running from miles away as Interior and Arctic bears sometimes will, to check you out as a potential meal.

Let's not forget, Timothy Treadwell spent 13 summers engaging in his bear-fondling goofiness with the Katmai bears without a problem. He didn't get killed and, oddly enough, eaten until he ran into an unruly October bear -- a 28-year-old bear with broken teeth; a big, old bear needing calories to maintain its overgrown, 1,000-pound body size, a bear that scientists might describe as "food stressed."

Not to mention there's no telling what Treadwell might have done to provoke an attack. Bear biologists generally agree that if Treadwell had tried to get up close and personal with Denali National Park bears or Arctic refuge bears the way he did with Katmai bears, he wouldn't have lasted a summer.

BASIC FACTS WRONG

But I guess it could be as easy to overlook these differences among Alaska bears as it is to get other things simply confused. Vick again:

"...Don Smith, a telephone technician packing a .45 along with his fly rods as he prepared to float the Russian River, not far from the Kenai Princess Lodge.

"Grizzlies routinely fish the bright teal waters alongside humans in what 'feels like joint custody,' said Sherry Simpson, the professor."

Hmmm.

Carcass-eating bears routinely "fish" alongside anglers on the Russian but not the Kenai. The Russian, however, has crystal clear water. The teal water is in the Kenai River which runs past the Princess Lodge. The Kenai also has several places for floaters to put in and take out boats. There are no put ins or take outs on the Russian, but I guess Smith could have been dragging a boat through the Russian River Campground to the river.

I've always kind of wanted to float the Russian myself just to see the reactions of the anglers who line both banks in places.

The only thing stopping me is that I'm chicken.

The Russian is only about half-a-cast wide, and I've always feared that if you went floating through the middle of the salmon an angler or two might try to snag you in the nose with a fly or bounce a big old chunk of lead off your head.

Maybe Vick should go do this float. In his case, having a sinker bounced off his noggin might be a good thing.

EARTH-EATING – GEOPHAGY IN BROWN BEARS

Grizzly bears intentionally ingest earth, which may serve several different functions.

In a famous quote about the food habits of the grizzly, naturalist John Muir states that these bears “eat everything but granite.” It turns out that Muir’s statement is not quite right, as while they have not been documented to eat rocks, they will eat earth! Some of the soil found in grizzly scat is not doubt ingested unintentionally along with their normal foods, like roots and ground squirrels. But grizzlies also intentionally eat soil and river sediment.

There are a few anecdotal accounts of brown bears diving down in the river ways in which they fish to take mouthfuls of mud from the river bottom. It has been suggested that they do this to clean their alimentary tracts of internal parasites. At Katmai National Park, we found brown bear scat that was comprised of fine sediment. The fecal material also contained numerous worms (I cannot be sure of the identification of the parasites involved, but they looked like a type of nematode).

In Yellowstone National Park, Mattson et al. (1999a) found 12 sites where grizzlies consume soil and found earth in some scat samples. These areas were free of vegetation due to thermal activity. Geophagy was most common between March and May and again from August to October – these correspond to times when ungulate and mushroom eating was also common. The researchers concluded the soil consumption may have several functions. Like ungulates, grizzlies may eat earth to detoxify secondary compounds present in the foliage they consume and to supplement their diet with potassium. In the areas where grizzlies ingested soil, the earth has very high in potassium, magnesium and sulphur. The authors also suggest that that by consuming these soils, the bears may prevent diarrhea by helping to get rid of some parasites and bacteria in the alimentary tract.

References:

Mattson, D.J., G.I. Green and R. Swalley. 1999. Geophagy by Yellowstone grizzly bears.
Ursus 11:109-116.

BROWN BEAR FISHING BEHAVIOR: PREY SELECTION

A big brown bear with a big salmon. There is more to the fishing behavior of Ursus arctos than meets the eye! Photo by Scott W. Michael.

“In small backwaters where the fish collect in shoals and where the fins of the fish are visible while they move against the current. The bears either enter the water attempting to drive the fish into the shallows, or stand in the water, lowering the head to the surface while waiting for the fish and catching it rapidly with the paws.... The catching of fish is easier in spawning places with calm water, where the fish are less cautious and strong. When the fish are numerous the bear eats mainly the head and part of the back, when fish are scarce, they are eaten completely. The stomach of a large bear may contain 20 kg of fish. However, plants and berries are always found together with fish.” Yu. V Averin (1948) describing the feeding behavior of the Russian brown bears in the Kronoki reserve (in Stroganov 1969)

As far back as 1889, bear-watchers reported that bears selectively ate parts but not all the salmon they caught. A. M. Nikol’skii (in Stroganov 1969) stated that when fish are abundant, Russian brown bears eat only the head and roe of the salmon, leaving the body. When the fish are scarce, they consume their entire catch. Yu Averin, in the 1948 quote above, also reported on this phenomenon.

Most salmonids are anadromous. That is, they hatch in freshwater, move into the sea, and return to the freshwater streams where they hatched to spawn themselves. While it varies from one species to the next, in many parts of Alaska, three different species of salmon spawn during the months of July through early October. The salmon enter their spawning grounds and typically live in freshwater for 5 to 25 days (depending on the species and location) until they die of senescence. Many die before this time as a result of bear predation. In one study, of 1,933 salmon tagged by researchers as they entered three different Alaskan streams, 64 % of the tagged fish were killed by bears, 33 % died of senescence, and 2.6 % died from other causes (like stranding on the beach or were killed by other predators).

When a salmon makes its way into freshwater, it stops feeding and expends incredible amounts of energy on reproduction and the act of swimming upstream – as a result, from this point forward the nutrient value of a fish will drop as they burn stored fat and protein. Researchers Hendry and Berg (1999) found that the total energy content of a salmon drops from 40 to 50 % and the lipid content plummets as much as 80 to 95 % from the time the fish enter a stream and the time when they die of senescence. It would make sense then that brown bears would attempt to capture and consume those fish that have spent less time in Alaska’s streams and that the fish that the bears find least attractive would be those that are reproductively spent and in the process of dying.

But how could a bear determine the nutrient value of a fish (e.g., how long it had been in freshwater)? In some salmon species there are very overt signs of senescence. For example, male red or sock-eye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) develop hooked jaws during the spawning period. Salmonid energy stores are depleted and the immune system begins to suffer, as a result of stress and malnutrition, the skin becomes discolored and patches of fungus appear. The longer a salmon is in freshwater engaging in the spawning process, it picks-up more wounds on the body from fighting and frayed fins as a result of nest digging. So, it maybe that these outward signs of a salmon’s physical condition (potential energy content) could be used by grizzlies to help select the most valuable prey.

Researchers have examined if brown bears target those fish that have been in freshwater for a shorter period of time (“younger” fish) and thus have greater nutrient content. They found that in streams where bears can easily capture salmon that they do select younger salmon. In one such stream, the bruins fed most heavily on fish that have been in the stream for three days or less, while they totally ignored fish that had been in freshwater for over 12 days. However, in streams that were wider, had deep pools and/or lots of structure (e.g., sunken limbs and overhanging banks) brown bears fed more on “older” fish (individuals that have been in the stream for over 12 days). In these streams, the salmon that have recently entered freshwater are more energetic and better able to elude the bears, while “older” fish that have expended lots of energy and are “on their last fin” are easier to catch. While the “younger” fish may have more nutrients, the bears will expend more time and energy to catch them. Therefore, in these streams, going after the less elusive, but less nutrient-rich fish, is a better strategy.

Other factors that will impact brown bear foraging strategies are the density of fishes in a particular stream and the weather. When the streams are chock-a-block with amorous fish, the bears can be more selective, while if the fish are few and far between, they cannot afford to be as particular. Likewise, if the streams are breaking their banks and the water is turbid as a result of excessive rain, bears are not as selective. It is get what you can, when you can! There are also individual bears that apparently develop a taste for rotting salmon carcasses. Bledsoe (1987) tells of a bear named “Zubin” at McNeil Falls that would leave a good fishing spot to go scavenge for dead fish.

Food handling in brown bears sometimes changes as the fishing season goes on. At first, the bears will consume the entire salmon, but as the season goes on, on if it has been a good salmon run, the bruins become more selective, restricting their feeding efforts to the more nutritious bits. They peel off the skin, they nibble out the brains, and tear open the abdomen to gain access to the roe. It is not uncommon to see a grizzly step on a fish, causing a stream of orange, nutritious eggs to spew forth. The bears use their tongue to lap-up the eggs.

References:

Bledsoe, T. 1987. Brown Bear Summer: Life Among Alaska's Giants. New York, New York, E P Dutton. 249 Pp.

Hendry, A. P. and O.K. Berg. 1999. Secondary sexual characters, energy use, senescence, and the cost of reproduction in sockeye salmon. Can. J. Zool. 77:1663-1675.

Quinn, T.P., S.M. Gende, G.T. Ruggerone, and D.E. Rogers. 2003. Density-dependent predation by brown bears (Ursus arctos) on sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka). Can. J. Aquat. Sci. 60:553-562.

©2008 Scott W. Michael

CLAM-DIGGING BROWN BEARS

A female brown bear nimbly uses her large claws to separate the valves of a razor clam and get to the juicy morsels within. See slide show below for more on this bear. Photo by Scott W. Michael.

When it comes to food, brown bears are very opportunistic. As discussed in past posts, they are also very intelligent. Consequently, they’re always looking for new food sources that they can exploit. Along the coast of Alaska, brown bears congregate in salt marshes in spring and early summer. They feed on sedges, grasses and forbs as they wait for migrating salmon to arrive in nearby estuaries. Some bears move out of the marshes and sedge flats and feed on animals that inhabit shore habitats. Along the Katmai coast, there are large tides that expose an expansive intertidal flat that is exposed for three to five hours a day. Certain bears utilize this habitat, hunting for mussels, isopods, barnacles, marine worms (polychaetes and peanut worms) and small intertidal fishes (blennies and sand lances). While it may seem that burrowing clams would be impervious to brown bear attack, there are some bruins that have learned how to locate, capture and handle these infaunal mollusks.

The intertidal zone along the Katmai coast is home to a handful of clam species. The four species that are known to be eaten by brown bears are the soft-shelled clam (Mya arenaria), the razor clam (Siliqua patula), Nuttall’s cockle (Clinodcardium nuttallii) and the Alaska surf clam (Spisula polynyma). These mollusks spend most of their lives below the sand surface, taking in fresh seawater and planktonic food through tube like siphons. The siphons extends from the clam up to the sand surface. (Those species with a shorter siphon remain near the sand surface in order to respire and feed, while those with a longer siphon can burrow to greater depths.) Many of the burrowing clams are adapted to living in the intertidal zone. When the tide goes out, they remain buried in their wet, sandy sanctuary and await the rising tide to bring back life giving oxygen and food.

Clam-hunting Techniques

At low tide along the Katmai coast, you may see an individual brown bear, or a bruin family (sow a cubs), slowly meandering across the tidal flat with nose skimming the sand surface. Somehow the bears detect the buried clams (possibly by using their keen olfactory senses). When they do, the ursid will stop and begin digging at a leisurely pace. The mollusk-hunting bear will lean on one front paw and use the other as a shovel. It will methodically lift the substrate from the hole and push it back behind the excavation. If the clam is deeper in the sand, the bear might lean on its elbow, laying its head on the foreleg, in order to thrust the digging paw deeper into the substrate. When it reaches the bivalve, it will extract it by lifting it out with its claws/paw or by shoving its head into the hole and grasping the clam in its jaws. Troyer (2005) reports that like fishing, bears vary in their clam-digging prowess. Some bears are very effective “clamers,” while others are inept. If a bear’s digging activity never or rarely results in positive reinforcement, they give up this activity after a time. Troyer also notes that when it comes to clam-digging, some bears are exclusively “right-pawed,” while others only use their left paw.

In a study conducted on Katmai bears, it was found that the average harvest rate for clamming bears was 0.69 ± 0.46 clams per minute (Smith et al. 2004). The percentage of excavations that yielded clams was 63%. When it comes to the number of clams ingested, Troyer (2005) reported seeing individual brown bears dig up as many as 50 to 100 clams in one cycle of the ebb-tide. In one four hour period, I watched a female with cubs dig between 180 to 200 holes (it was impossible to determine how many clams the bear ate during this period).

Once they extract the mollusk from its subterranean refuge, the bear has to get to the meat that is housed within the clam’s calcareous armor. In the case of the soft-shelled and razor clams, the valves (which are the two parts that make-up the shell) are not that hard. A bear’s clam-handling technique can vary from one individual to the next. After pulling a clam from the substrate, some bears nimbly use the claws to pull the valves apart (see slide show below). Some bears place the bivalve on the beach and then stomp on it or roll it under their massive paw. This results in the valves breaking apart, which enables the bruin to extract the meat with their lips and tongue. In the case of soft-shell clams, the bear may take the entire bivalve into its mouth and masticate it. This resulted in their swallowing a considerable amount of shell material as well as the clam flesh (along the Katmai coast it is not unusual to see scat that contains clam shell fragments).

Clams Eaten

Katmai Brown bears do not feed on the various clams species in equal numbers. Smith et al. (2004) found that 77% of the time bears dug-up soft-shelled clams (Mya arenaria), 18% of the time they pulled out razor clams (Siliqua patula) and 2% of the time they excavated other clam species (namely Nuttall’s cockle [Clinodcardium nuttallii] and the Alaska surf clam [Spisula polynyma]). Clam species selection is thought to be more a function of species availability rather than preferences related to a species nutritional value. For example, the bears apparently feed more on the soft-shelled clams because they are found closer to shore and thus are available to foraging bears for longer period of time. There is not a difference in the bear’s harvest rate or success rate between soft-shelled and razor clams, even though the razor clam have what appeared to be a more effective anti-predation strategy – that is, when disturbed they pull themselves deeper into the substrate.

Who Digs Clams?

When it comes to a proclivity to dig clams, there are differences between the sexes. Smith et al. (2004) reported that of 233 clamming bouts observed, less than 1% of the clam-diggers were adult males, 44% were females with cubs and 55% were single bears of undetermined sex. How does the overall population of bears in this area compare with those observed clamming? The researchers found that of 16,738 bear (or bear family groups) encounters (over two years), 13% were large adult males, 8% were females with cubs-of-the-year (spring cubs), 17% were females with dependent young and 62% were single bears. It is obvious that females with cubs are overrepresented on the intertidal flats (44% of total population vs. 25% of bears observed clamming), while adult males are greatly underrepresented (13% vs. 1%). During focal sampling of bears working the intertidal zone (that is, where they followed individual bears and recorded their behavior), large adult males spent 0.1% of their time clamming, while females with dependent young invested 4.7% of their time digging mollusks (the single unsexed bears spent 1.4% of their time). The conclusion: females with young cubs most often feed on clams on the intertidal flats.

Benefits to Clam-digging

So what are the benefits for the bruins that dig clams? First of all, clams are a good source of digestible protein. Those brown bears that supplement their diets with these nutritional mollusks, are able to spend much less time munching on vegetation in order to meet their springtime energy requirements. Smith et al. (2004) predicted that a 160-kg brown bear that consumed razor clams for two hours a day could cut down total foraging time by 27% (compared to bears that only consumed vegetation). There is another advantage for clam-digging females that have cubs in tow. Because adult males are rarely seen on the intertidal flats, females with dependent young can forage in this habitat without exposing their offspring to potentially dangerous males. Less time spent feeding and less dangerous for young ones – a definite twofold advantage to hunting clams.

References

Smith, T.S. and S.T. Partridge. 2004. Dynamics of intertidal foraging by coastal brown bears in southwestern Alaska. Jour. Wildlife Manag. 68(20):233-240.

Troyer, W. Into Brown Bear Country. Univ. Alaska Press, Fairbanks, 130 Pp.

Copyright (2008) Scott W. Michael

The slide show below documents the clamming behavior of a female brown bear, with three spring cubs (the latter are not seen in the slideshow).

MALEVOLENT MOTHERS AND BRUIN BABYSITTING: PART 2

The brown bear sow (Ms. Hook) that trusted us to babysit her two spring cubs for approximately 20 minutes.

The spring cubs occasionally look back to observe us, but for the most part seemed completely comfortable with being "cached" with Homo sapiens. All photos by Scott W. Michael.

In the last bear post (click here to read), we looked at how mother bears will utilize the presence of human groups to increase their level of security while nursing their young – a indicator of their ability to learn and their behavioral plasticity. Last year (2007) in Katmai, our group was able to witness an even more amazing phenomenon, related to sows and dependent cubs. This behavior has been dubbed as “cub-caching.” During this behavior, instead of moving close to human groups to nurse, the sow will approach a hominid cluster with her cubs, and then leave her offspring with the humans while she goes off to fish among the other bears. That’s right, they employ our species to babysit their youngsters! Quite a contrast to the mother bear described in my last posting that attacked the two hikers in Glacier National Park, eh (click here)? Once again, the root cause is the fact that some large boars have an aversion to us and at least some sows have learned to take advantage of it. By leaving their young cubs near a group of people, the sows can go fish without putting their offspring at risk of being attacked by other bears.

During my stay at Katmai National Park, our group experienced cub caching on three separate occasions. Our first experience with this behavior went something like this: mother bear (dubbed Ms. Hook) came sauntering along a tributary that snaked from the river mouth to the sea, with two small shapes trotting along some distance behind her. The two cubs were lagging behind, occasionally stopping to sniff the sand and to pick-up bits of debris (e.g., shells) in their mouths. When the sow was adjacent to our little clump of humanity (about 4 m away) she stopped and waited for her kinder to catch-up. When they did, she abruptly vocalized and the two cubs plopped down on the wet sand. I assume the vocalization was their cue that we were in charge for while. Mother bear then proceeded to head for the prime fishing area, 60 to 80 yards further along and into the estuary, and join the other bears that were already chasing and jumping on their illusive quarry. So there we were, 3 to 4 m from two winsome spring cubs that were not at all concerned about the gawking band of two-legged, one-eyed anthropoids (that one- eye was the lenses protruding from the camera that are faces were pressed up against)! The cubs simply sat on their haunches and watched their mother leave, they turned to check us out, one laid back in repose, they checked out debris in the sand – in short, they were ideal little charges!

After five minutes or so, they moved along in front of us (much to the delight of the photographers as they had originally parked themselves between us and the sun) and sat down side-by-side with their backs facing us. They remained there until a big pulse of salmon entered the estuary mouth and all hell broke loose with the adult bears chasing fish in various directions. The sudden commotion startled the little bears, which ran past us and took up a position behind our group. They remained there for a little while longer until mom came back to pick them up.

I could not believe what I had just witnessed - I had read about it, but to actually see it happen was mind altering! To have this powerful, often misunderstood mother, entrust us with her seven month old offspring while she went off to catch her supper! The photos above were all shot during our first baby-sitting (cub-caching) encounter. That 20 minute period was worth the cost of the entire trip and was no doubt my most memorable wildlife encounter!

Copyright (2008) Scott W. Michael

FREE hit counter and Internet traffic statistics from freestats.com

MALEVOLENT MOTHERS AND BRUIN BABYSITTING: PART 1

When sows nurse their young, they are placed in somewhat of a precarious position, having to recline on their back with back legs splayed forth. It turns out, some females will utilize groups of humans as a refuge as they engage in nursing. Photo by Scott W. Michael

“Hushai said moreover, "You know your father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are fierce in their minds, like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field…” 2 Samuel 17:8

"Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly." Proverbs 17:12

"I will meet them like a bear that is bereaved of her cubs, and will tear the covering of their heart." Hosea 13:8

The writers of old were well aware that it was not a good idea to threaten the young of a mother brown bear. Contemporary authors have rang the same warnings bells. If you read any guide on recreating in bear country, one of the ironclad rubrics is to never approach a grizzly sow with offspring. As we discussed in an earlier posting, mother grizzly is a product of her environment, which in the past, was not a very safe place to raise a family. So she will sometimes respond aggressively to a perceived threat - which people are, at least over some portions of the grizzly’s range.

Consider the case of Ann Quarterman and Christine Bialkowski described in the book Mark of the Grizzly. While this book is considered “bjorn porn” (bjorn is Norwegian for bear*) by many ursidophiles, the Quarterman and Bialkowski attack clearly demonstrates just how protective a mother bear can be. The two women were hiking in Glacier National Park, when they spotted a sow with two cubs of the year in tow some 300 meters away. The female, upon spotting the two hikers, immediately began charging toward them. The two girls jumped up and down and yelled hoping that the bear would recognize them as human and forestall her attack, but the sow kept coming. They finally ducked behind a rise so that they were out of sight of the agitated mother bear. She pressed on until she located the hikers cowering behind the ridge and subsequently mauled them both before running off with her offspring. (One woman had bear spray and actually unloaded the whole canister on the bear, but it apparently had little effect on the sow’s desire to do harm to the perceived threat to her cubs.)

There is no doubt that a mother grizzly can morph into one of the most ferocious animals on the planet, if she feels that her cubs are in peril. But momma bears, at least in some areas, do not always look at humans as a threat. Consider the refuging behavior employed by sows with dependent cubs. This was first described in the population of Ursus arctos that frequent the McNeil River Sanctuary. At McNeil, there is a viewing pad, where all human observers are to remain when watching the bears. Biologists began to notice that mothers with cubs would approach near to the viewing pad when they wanted to nurse their young. During the nursing process, the mother bear lies on her back and her progeny climb onto her belly and suckle at one of her six nipples (they may move from one nipple to another until mom’s milk supply is temporary exhausted). During this time, mother and babies are more vulnerable to attack. If other bears are around, the sow will keep a close eye on the goings-on of her neighbors. If she feels threatened, she will quickly jump to her feet, sending the cubs tumbling to earth, and prepare to defend her offspring.

It turns out (as I mentioned in the last post) that in many areas where bear-viewing occurs, large males tend to be more wary of human groups. (It has been suggested that boar avoidance of people is a function of their being more likely to have had negative experiences with hunters, who usually target large males.) You can see this avoidance behavior at McNeil River, where many larger boars remain on the side of the river opposite the viewing pad. OK –so here is where it gets real interesting. Female bears have learned about these tendencies and as a result, in order to increase their security levels during these nursing bouts, some sows will sidle-up to our kind! Is that not awesome - that mother brown bears have learned to use bear-viewers to help take care of her cubs.

That female’s take advantage of ecotourists has been studied in British Colombia (Nevin and Gilbert 2005). These researchers found that female’s with dependent cubs catch more fish-per-unit-effort when ecotourists are present than when they are not. They concluded that this increase in foraging effectiveness was due to the fact fewer males are present when bear-viewers are around. (Other studies in this region have shown that large boars tend to fish more at night when humans vacate the fishing area, while more mothers with cubs fish during the day.)

We will examine an even more incredible phenomenon, cub caching, in my next post.

References:

Nevin, O. T. and B. K. Gilbert. 2005. Measuring the cost of risk avoidance in brown bears: Further evidence of positive impacts of ecotourism. Biol. Conserv. 123:453-460.

Paula, a very experienced and defensive sow, nurses her yearling cub, Racer. After nursing, Racer relaxes and enjoys the security of having a good mom. Video by Scott W. Michael.

* - I borrowed the saying “bjorn porn” from bear biologist Steve Stringham - we will discuss Steve and his amazing work in a future post!

Copyright (2008) Scott W. Michael

FREE hit counter and Internet traffic statistics from freestats.com

HELGA HANGS WITH HUMANS

Big teeth, long claws, massive muscles, amazing sensory modalities - the grizzly has many impressive corporeal attributes. But not only does the great bear have an impressive set of physical tools, it is also one of the most intelligent animals on the planet. Naturalist, John M. Hornaday (1930) says the following about the grizzly:

“The bear’s ingenuity, his curiosity, and his enjoyment of recreation are closely connected. They are the signs of his intelligence. The bear shows his sagacity in many ways; he is not an idler, and is always busy learning something. Even though he does not venture far from his known domain and is cautious in his actions, he is a mental adventurer, constantly assimilating new impressions and ideas. He is not a gregarious animal, and when he meets a new situation, he has to reason it out for himself. Any unusual occurrence arouses his curiosity, and he usually investigates in an intelligent manner. The grizzly has a good sense of humor, of a mischievous type.”

In regard to the mind of the grizzly, Hornaday, director of the New York Zoological Park wrote of the ursids:

“Considered as a group, the bears of the world are supremely interesting animals. In fact, no group surpasses them save the Order Primates, and it requires the enrollment of all the apes, baboons and monkey’s to accomplish this. From sunrise to sunset a bear is an animal of original thought and vigorous enterprise.”

Studies conducted on the "academic" abilities of bears have shown that they can learn as fast as the great apes. They have amazing spatial memory. Anyone that has lived in bear country knows how good their memory is when it comes to relocating a food source. One encounter with an a trash can that contains edible-refuse will almost certainly bring the bear back to that very spot (sometimes again, again and again). Gunter et al (2004) said in their study on problem bears “Once a bear successfully obtains food reward at a particular location, the site is usually periodically re-checked for more food.” Problem bears that are relocated, typically find their way back to the location where easily accessed morsels were originally found. These individuals are often referred to as “boomerang bears” and they have been known to revisit an inappropriate food source even after having been moved over 100 miles from it!

The video below shows just how smart a young grizzly can be! What it documents is a three-year old bear placing our group of photographers between itself and a large male (Snaggletooth – I will introduce him to you in detail in a future post). The young bear is Helga, one of the “H-twins” (her sister is Hannah - both were named by longtime bear enthusiast, wildlife photographer and Katmai visitor, Carol Bailey). While it may seem counterintuitive, large males are often more reluctant to approach human groups than are younger bears or adult females. (It turns out that Snaggletooth is a very human-habituated bear and so he really does not mind people.) Females and subadults of both sexes may hang out near groups of observers because they have learned that the potentially dangerous males are less likely to bother them there. In this case, Helga is using our group as a shield, just in case the big bad boar decides to harass or even attempt to eat her! She eventually moves off behind us and away from Snaggletooth. In my next bear post, we will look at cub caching, a truly amazing phenomenon that I have been able to witness at Katmai.

FREE hit counter and Internet traffic statistics from freestats.com