The Detouring Doctor

This series of pictures shows the sequence from a catch to kill to feed for a grizzly. Remember that these animals hibernate for around 6 months of every year. Hence during the warmer months top priority for bears is to stuff themselves with as much food as possible. They need to gain hundreds of pounds in weight at this time to survive the hibernation. Bears are omnivores but clearly the best chance of gaining the required weight is with oily, fat rich salmon which swim from the sea upstream for hundreds of kilometres to spawn before dying.

This is where Katmai is so special. The river here is close enough to the sea to sea massive numbers of salmon here, Then there is the small but significant interruption to their passage that is Brooks Falls which further concentrates the salmon numbers resulting in a veritable smorgasbord for bears.

Finally there is a pattern to eating these fish that is common to all of these bears. Once caught the first bite will be to the head to extract the fatty brain tissue first. Then the skin is stripped off and eaten as all the fat is beneath the skin and that’s what they after. Early in the season there is so much fat on the salmon that they will often discard the meat. Later in the season all of the fish is consumed.

The year is 1912, coincidentally the year of the Titanic sinking but a bigger disaster befell the planet with the second largest ever volcanic eruption on the planet occurring right here. The source was Katmai volcano erupting through a side vent a few miles away now known as Novarupta volcano. The resultant ash cloud went 20 miles into the air and was visible from Europe. Millions of tons of ash were dumped for miles around and the extra carbon in the atmosphere lowered global temperatures by 2 degrees celsius for the next 2 years. In 1918 this area was proclaimed a national park to preserve and study the area of the eruption. Paradoxically national park status has nothing to do with the bear show.

For the next 30 years the devastated area all around sported over 10,000 fumeroles belching out sulphurous gas hence the name. Sadly that has petered out but the day trip out here does not disappoint. Sadly the weather is not kind but I did use the available sunshine to the max yesterday and I can’t complain. At least the rain did not interfere with walking and photography. The cloud, while obscuring the ring of volcanoes was at least high enough to allow for some pictures of the moonscape like lava ash fields.

Throughout August in the lead up to coming here every day I would log onto the live bear cam feed online before starting work each day and then having a quick look at what was happening between patients. August is said to be unimpressive yet every day I would see at least 3 bears at the Brooks Falls camera. I booked for the month of September as that has better bear viewing and as I logged on to bear cam in September bear numbers seemed to have doubled or tripled and the bright sunshine was obvious. My first afternoon here was bright and sunny and I made the most of it knowing that the forecast for the next 2 days was for rain.

The walk from the lodge to Brooks Falls takes around 20 minutes. Walking alone has me at a disadvantage and I follow the rangers advice that human noise is a deterrent and I talk mindlessly out aloud to noone as I go there. I arrive at Brooks Falls around 1 in the afternoon and there is one massive bear at the far end of the falls. Finding a nice front row spot on the platform I enjoy watching this well fed guy bide his time before wandering to his favourite pool and catching a large deep pink salmon in his mouth and wandering to the shallows to eat up. I watch him repeat this ritual over and over again. Secretly I was a bit disappointed that there was only one there but what the heck, I had never seen one in the wild before so I was not going to be greedy.

Grizzly bears are crepuscular animals, are active around dawn and dusk, but this park with its high food environment changes those rules. The wild salmon run from the sea upstream to spawn before dying. The peak months here are July and September in those months bears are here feeding all day. My log on time for bear cam in Sorrento was 9am which is 3 pm here. Come 3 pm the number of bears here had increased to 7 and the bears were all over the place, mainly fishing but wandering over and under the falls, jostling for position. Wow, what a show, under brilliant sunny skies the camera got a real work out.

Eventually after over 3 hours of bear watching and sated, I determined to make use of the brilliant sunshine and do the walk up Dumpling Hill to get the panoramic view of the lake and the mountains. Walking solo, through the forest past lots of smelly bear scats and in the late afternoon it is anxious couple of hours of chatter and song up and down the mountain but the views and pictures more than make up for it.