Photographing Katmai's Bears 1982
The blonde sow that chased us.
Katmai's Brown Bears 1982
by Dave Taylor
1982
At places, like Alaska’s McNeil River Sanctuary and Katmai National Park, brown bears become habituated to the presence of people. Here conflicts between people and bears are rare. These bears have become used to people and generally have defined their own personal comfort zone. Some are more nervous of people and generally stay further away. Others achieve a more tolerant sense of space and will come much closer to humans. It appears that to these bears, people are merely another life-form that happens to be at the same stream. These bears do not set out to hunt or attack people. Even sudden unexpected close encounters, well within the bear's personal security zone, are often met with nothing more than a casual glance.
It is amazing to realize that with the tremendous numbers of bear-human encounters that occur in these areas the number of conflicts is so many times smaller than the recorded incidents in parks like Yellowstone and Glacier. I can't help but wonder if this apparent tolerance isn't due to other factors besides food. I used to believe that Katmai's bears were simply too well fed to bother with being aggressive towards people. Now I'm not too sure.
Denali National Park's grizzly bears also show a lack of aggression towards people. To be sure, people are more restricted there, but serious bear-human conflicts are rare in this park too. I wonder if it hasn't got more to do with the bear's treatment at the hand of man. A Colorado wildlife photographer and I discussed this while we photographing a sow and two cubs in Denali. He felt that Yellowstone's bears had been poked, prodded, radio-collared, followed and darted to the point that they had had it with people. I think his explanation for the greater aggression of Yellowstone's bears is probably correct. While it is true that some darting does go on in Alaska, the vast majority of places where bears can be seen regularly have few radio collared bears. In most of these places, bears and people see each other daily.
Of course education plays a role here too. In Alaska bear viewing has strict codes of behaviour. People and bears alike must obey them. Bears are not allowed in camp. People must respect the bear’s area. Bear cubs learn from their mothers what is appropriate. People learn from park officials.
In Yellowstone the situation is different. Park rangers may not be nearby when people and bears meet. In Alaska's viewing areas the sightings are confined to relatively small areas near salmon streams or they are controlled through shuttle bus programs. In Yellowstone the public has free access to miles of roads where little enforced bear-education can be administered. There, rangers shoo people away from bears as soon as they stumble on the situation. "Best not to encourage such meetings." The problem is that bears are a major tourist attraction. Maintaining a balance between safety and bear viewing opportunities can be done but there are inherent risks.
Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Georgia, attempted a few years back to institute a more relaxed policy towards bear-human interaction. A superb public education campaign was instituted and "no-feeding of bears" regulations were enforced. The attempt did not succeed for some bears quickly habituated to people and picnic areas became prime targets for the bears to raid.
Waterton Lakes National Park (Alberta) seems to have succeeded in people and bear management. I suspect this is largely due to the smaller size of the park combined with the limited amount of roads found there. Success in bear viewing seems tied to controlling the crowds. In Waterton any bear viewing is going to be within a few miles of a park warden's station.
Katmai National Monument is one place where bears and people are both managed well. I visited the monument in 1982 with another photographer and again in 1994. Much has changed. Alaska is implementing more stringent rules to keep both the bears and people safe from one another. In the next chapter I cover the Katmai of today.
In '82 things were pretty open. We were greeted at the beach where the float plane dropped us off. There were eleven of us on the plane, most were fishermen, one was a photographer for National Geographic and then there was Jim Markou and I. It was mid-August, a time when there is little bear activity at Brooks Falls.
A park ranger spoke to us and outlined the rules we were to follow. Fishermen had to bring their fish back to a cleaning station immediately. In any dispute over fish, the bear was to win. If a bear grabs a fish you hooked, cut the line. Regulations for photographers were not stringent.
We saw our first brown bear the next morning as walked the beach. It was scary.
Here, walking towards us was a wild brown bear and we had no place to go. We took refuge on the dock but the bear ignored us. It was a three year old cub. By the end of the day we were approaching bears to within ten metres (ten yards) of them. There was no viewing tower, no fixed trails. We wandered where we wanted.
The next day we rented a canoe and some waders and headed up the shallow Brook's River towards the falls. The river was so fast we had to pull the canoe behind us. Despite the time of year we saw five or six bears. Peak bear viewing is in early July and late August and September when the really big runs of salmon come in. As far as we could see we caused no bear to alter its behaviour (eating dead or dying fish) and no bear did anything aggressive towards us. Except one.
She and two cubs were on gravel bar in front of the lodge when Jim and I spotted her. We were in the canoe and we figured we were safe enough shooting her from about thirty metres out. She looked at us and then walked into the water. Then she swam right at us. We were two grown men, reasonably efficient paddlers, and we couldn't out "run" her. Thank god she turned back or this book would be written by someone else. That was the most aggression I saw from any bear that summer. It was a great trip.
Katmai's Brown Bears 1982
by Dave Taylor
1982
At places, like Alaska’s McNeil River Sanctuary and Katmai National Park, brown bears become habituated to the presence of people. Here conflicts between people and bears are rare. These bears have become used to people and generally have defined their own personal comfort zone. Some are more nervous of people and generally stay further away. Others achieve a more tolerant sense of space and will come much closer to humans. It appears that to these bears, people are merely another life-form that happens to be at the same stream. These bears do not set out to hunt or attack people. Even sudden unexpected close encounters, well within the bear's personal security zone, are often met with nothing more than a casual glance.
It is amazing to realize that with the tremendous numbers of bear-human encounters that occur in these areas the number of conflicts is so many times smaller than the recorded incidents in parks like Yellowstone and Glacier. I can't help but wonder if this apparent tolerance isn't due to other factors besides food. I used to believe that Katmai's bears were simply too well fed to bother with being aggressive towards people. Now I'm not too sure.
Denali National Park's grizzly bears also show a lack of aggression towards people. To be sure, people are more restricted there, but serious bear-human conflicts are rare in this park too. I wonder if it hasn't got more to do with the bear's treatment at the hand of man. A Colorado wildlife photographer and I discussed this while we photographing a sow and two cubs in Denali. He felt that Yellowstone's bears had been poked, prodded, radio-collared, followed and darted to the point that they had had it with people. I think his explanation for the greater aggression of Yellowstone's bears is probably correct. While it is true that some darting does go on in Alaska, the vast majority of places where bears can be seen regularly have few radio collared bears. In most of these places, bears and people see each other daily.
Of course education plays a role here too. In Alaska bear viewing has strict codes of behaviour. People and bears alike must obey them. Bears are not allowed in camp. People must respect the bear’s area. Bear cubs learn from their mothers what is appropriate. People learn from park officials.
In Yellowstone the situation is different. Park rangers may not be nearby when people and bears meet. In Alaska's viewing areas the sightings are confined to relatively small areas near salmon streams or they are controlled through shuttle bus programs. In Yellowstone the public has free access to miles of roads where little enforced bear-education can be administered. There, rangers shoo people away from bears as soon as they stumble on the situation. "Best not to encourage such meetings." The problem is that bears are a major tourist attraction. Maintaining a balance between safety and bear viewing opportunities can be done but there are inherent risks.
Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Georgia, attempted a few years back to institute a more relaxed policy towards bear-human interaction. A superb public education campaign was instituted and "no-feeding of bears" regulations were enforced. The attempt did not succeed for some bears quickly habituated to people and picnic areas became prime targets for the bears to raid.
Waterton Lakes National Park (Alberta) seems to have succeeded in people and bear management. I suspect this is largely due to the smaller size of the park combined with the limited amount of roads found there. Success in bear viewing seems tied to controlling the crowds. In Waterton any bear viewing is going to be within a few miles of a park warden's station.
Katmai National Monument is one place where bears and people are both managed well. I visited the monument in 1982 with another photographer and again in 1994. Much has changed. Alaska is implementing more stringent rules to keep both the bears and people safe from one another. In the next chapter I cover the Katmai of today.
In '82 things were pretty open. We were greeted at the beach where the float plane dropped us off. There were eleven of us on the plane, most were fishermen, one was a photographer for National Geographic and then there was Jim Markou and I. It was mid-August, a time when there is little bear activity at Brooks Falls.
A park ranger spoke to us and outlined the rules we were to follow. Fishermen had to bring their fish back to a cleaning station immediately. In any dispute over fish, the bear was to win. If a bear grabs a fish you hooked, cut the line. Regulations for photographers were not stringent.
We saw our first brown bear the next morning as walked the beach. It was scary.
Here, walking towards us was a wild brown bear and we had no place to go. We took refuge on the dock but the bear ignored us. It was a three year old cub. By the end of the day we were approaching bears to within ten metres (ten yards) of them. There was no viewing tower, no fixed trails. We wandered where we wanted.
The next day we rented a canoe and some waders and headed up the shallow Brook's River towards the falls. The river was so fast we had to pull the canoe behind us. Despite the time of year we saw five or six bears. Peak bear viewing is in early July and late August and September when the really big runs of salmon come in. As far as we could see we caused no bear to alter its behaviour (eating dead or dying fish) and no bear did anything aggressive towards us. Except one.
She and two cubs were on gravel bar in front of the lodge when Jim and I spotted her. We were in the canoe and we figured we were safe enough shooting her from about thirty metres out. She looked at us and then walked into the water. Then she swam right at us. We were two grown men, reasonably efficient paddlers, and we couldn't out "run" her. Thank god she turned back or this book would be written by someone else. That was the most aggression I saw from any bear that summer. It was a great trip.
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