Alaska’s Brooks Falls hosts one of many largest concentrations of grizzly bears on the earth. As salmon make their manner up the six-foot waterfalls, bears vie for the most effective fishing spots. And the females will do no matter it takes to guard their younger.
Grizzly bear characters
The grizzly bears at Brooks Falls are vastly common with vacationers. These bears are additionally adopted intently on Katmai’s reside bearcams. Some have nicknames, amongst them some cumbersome people like Walker, Chunk and 747. However I travelled to this spot to see the females.
Journey
I stayed at Jacques Camp on the banks of Lake Iliamna, and travelled by float aircraft to Katmai Nationwide Park to look at the bears at Brooks Falls. The journey itself was fairly an journey. We flew to Naknek Lake, downstream of the falls and from there walked by the woods.
Brooks falls
These waterfalls characterize the ultimate problem for salmon migrating from the Pacific Ocean to breed within the higher reaches of those rivers. Every spring, following a journey of at the least a thousand miles, the salmon should leap the six-foot falls to make it to their spawning grounds in Brooks Lake past. Security is lower than a mile away, however first they have to run the gauntlet, leaping out of the water, proper into the trail of some hungry grizzly bears.
Grizzlies collect
The prospect for a straightforward meal leads the bears to collect in enormous numbers. The biggest bears are likely to take the most effective spots on the falls, however I discover the way in which the females and cubs behave probably the most attention-grabbing.
Feminine bears
Mom bears give beginning between January and March, and by now their cubs are round six months previous. I watched one feminine, often called 402, who’s believed to be round 25 years previous and to have had eight litters, greater than any bear at Brooks River.
Defending cubs
Grizzly males are a risk to cubs and might typically kill to drive a feminine into oestrus and guarantee solely their very own genes are handed on. The females due to this fact spend a lot of their time guarding their younger.
Grazer
However one bear mum, Grazer, had no downside standing as much as the opposite bears. Her cubs had been two years previous and nearing independence. Affectionately often called the ‘Grazerettes’, they oozed confidence as they adopted their dominant mom to the most effective fishing spot on the falls.
Bear ways
Apparently every ‘mama bear’ had its personal, distinctive method to parenting. Some, like a feminine nicknamed 402, had been cautious, others had been chancers and but extra had been previous fingers and calmly assured.