July 14, 2010

Grizzly or brown bear looking for salmon


Note that paw - and his claws!

Grizzly taking the plunge

Black bear fishing

One salmon got away

He ate the roe - the eagles got the rest

Black bear posing and taking a rest in a tree

Black bear running up a 90 degree wall of rock!

Looking for salmon

Think he needs a manicure

Anan Creek Bear Observatory

Finally we got a permit to visit this wildlife observatory. It only cost $10 a person but getting the permit was a quite a process that I won’t go into here. John and I visited Anan Creek 18 years ago and I really wanted to go back again this year. What a treat it was for me. We anchored the boat and went ashore with our dinghy. Then slogged up the beach to meet with a petite young ranger who took our money and told us how to act if we saw a bear on the ½ mile path up to the viewing platform. Talk or sing loudly, don’t act scared, don’t run away if they approach you, etc. Well easier said than done! And telling people to talk or sing makes it really difficult to do just that. (Since it was raining, we ended up singing “Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head” and other rainy day songs.)

As we walked up the path alongside the creek and got close to the observation platform we saw lots of bear scat (poo) and obvious places where they either bedded down or used a convenient log to scratch their backs or bums. We thought we had made it to the platform without seeing a bear but surprise was just down the bank as two grizzly's came into view. Not full grown but big enough. And they saw us too and decided to come up the bank to the path to check us out. All the singing, standing firm, looking big and not moving away from the bears too quickly went out the door as we in unison decided it was time to hightail it to the safety of the observation platform. Fortunately they didn’t follow - but a black bear almost slipped onto the platform behind us as one of us, forgot to close the gate.

It was well worth the close encounter with the two grizzly’s to be able to watch both black bears and grizzly’s fish to their hearts content, eat only the roe and then leave the eagles to clean up their mess.