Go fish
Friday July 26th 2013, 5:14 pm
Filed under: Wildlife

It took a flying leap.

I actually watched, in real time, a brown bear cub standing in a river, scanning constantly back and forth and finally catching a salmon at the base of a small waterfall. And then his mother, keeping a bit of a distance from him, snatched one out of the water too.  I’m not sure why it should surprise me that there was a wildlife cam set up there, especially given that I used to help run one for the San Jose peregrine falcon nest, but it’s wonderful.

Once they have that fish in their jaws they seem to consistently move to shore to eat, I imagine so that if their prey somehow slips or escapes, they can’t lose it.

As soon as one was caught the number of gulls in the vicinity seemed to go up, maybe waiting to steal a bite from the picnic basket?

And since it’s summer and they’re in Alaska, the daylight for watching them all by just goes on and on and on.


7 Comments so far
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Nature on parade! Thank you for sharing.

Comment by Channon 07.26.13 @ 6:37 pm

Great, just great…I’m going to lose a lot of time watching these bears, thanks to you…

(kidding – this is a fabulously placed webcam! Thanks for pointing it out; there are currently 4 bears in the view.)

Comment by Kathy in San Jose 07.26.13 @ 9:43 pm

My husband is planning a trip to see them in person. He’ll be so excited to see them live!

Comment by Jody 07.27.13 @ 4:53 am

About 10 years ago when we were in Alaska doing a day-hike on the Chilkoot Trail (in the rain in late September), we saw a bunch of dead salmon in a back-eddy in the river that each appeared to have a bit taken out of them. The guide said that the bears prefer the part with the liver because it’s highest in oil.
When we returned to Alaska last year, we were priviledged to have Brent Nixon onboard, and his nature lectures were both informative and absolutely hilarious. (There’s a sample video on utube. We bought the DVD’s.)

Comment by carol telsey 07.27.13 @ 6:20 am

Ah, Mama Bear taught the youngster well!

Comment by Donald Meyer 07.27.13 @ 9:54 am

Ooh, I wish there were an audio feed to hear that beautiful water!

Comment by twinsetellen 07.27.13 @ 6:19 pm

I have watched this webcam off and on since you mentioned it. This evening (my evening — their mid-afternoon) I saw a bear catch a salmon!! He took it over to the shore to eat — out of range of the other guys. And then I was listening to the ranger’s chat for a while. Next month they’ll turn on the underwater cam and we should be able to see the salmon convert from their initial appearance to the spawning appearance, with the hooked jaw and all that. That should be interesting also. Thanks for mentioning this.

Comment by Susan (sjanova) 07.29.13 @ 5:35 pm



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