Bears on the beach

 

I took the day off of work on Friday and went on a bear viewing sight seeing tour with Seahawk Air.  On Thursday Seahawk Air had flown us to the south of Kodiak for a day long archaeological survey, and Rolan the pilot had mentioned that the next day they planned going to the Alaska Peninsula to watch bears eating a whale on the beach.  Getting the chance to watch bears chow down on a whale does not happen very often, and this particular whale was on an outer coast beach so the weather had to be perfect.  No landing on the beach if the swell was too big.  And so I jumped at the opportunity and went on the bear viewing tour.

And WOW!

Last time I went on a bear tour was way back in 2005 and I used like a 4 mega pixel camera to take bear pictures (click here for post about 2005 trip). On this trip I took so many good pictures that when I got home I could not decide which ones are good.  They all seem good!  I also made sure to not take pictures all the time and to watch the bears through the binoculars rather than through the camera viewfinder.  In the binoculars the details were just so much more clear.  And the bears were so close.

The best part of the bear tour is learning about and observing bear behavior.  Jo has been guiding these bear tours long enough that she can reminisce about running into Timothy Treadwell while giving tours back in the day (I gather he would just walk up to the tours and start talking).  So Jo knows bear behavior.   The bears are like big dogs and there are dominant bears, submissive bears and all the gestures, eye avoiding etc, that the bears use to speak to each other (and to us and Jo!).  It was amazing.

It also got me thinking about how bearanoid most people on Kodiak are about bears.  And I also realized that all the training people do for when they go into bear country is all about watching a powerpoint and time at the rifle range with guns.  This is considered 'bear safety' training (think USFWS and ADF&G).  Perhaps instead of a powerpoint and some time at the range with a shotgun they should fly over to the Alaska Peninsula with Jo and hang out for a morning with the bears on the beach.  No guns just some pepper spray and a good understanding of bear behavior.

Patrick