If I Were Going...: September in Alaska #12 -- Fishing Bears

Of course, the reason there are Bears at Silver Salmon Creek is because of the salmon. The bears come to fish and fatten up for the winter. So, a lot of what we saw was fishing (and eating).

Eating on the beach

Brown Bears are among the most omnivorous animals in the world and have been recorded as consuming the greatest variety of foods of any Bear. They prefer abundant and easily accessed or caught food – so, at Silver Salmon Creek, it's the fish (although we also witnessed the bears eating plants and grasses).

In the high grass

We saw Agro fishing on the beach as the salmon were coming in...

Good catch

In coastal Alaska, Brown Bears feed mostly on spawning salmon, which are very abundant and highly nutritious, explaining the enormous size of the bears in these areas.

Looking a bit grumpy

While they may eat almost all the parts of the fish, bears at the peak of spawning normally eat about a quarter of the fish, concentrating on the fattiest portions, such as the brains, skin and eggs if there are any left (and leaving the rest for the eagles, wolves and other carrion eaters). However, at Silver Salmon Creek, they were eating the whole fish – probably because they were sufficiently healthy and not desperate to gain weight. They ate live as well as dead salmon.

Salmon lunch

We saw Crimpy Ear fishing on the creek as it meets the ocean (and then taking the fish up the hill to eat with her cubs) ...

Feeding the kids

Despite their normally solitary habits, Brown Bears will gather rather closely in numbers at good spawning sites. The largest and most powerful males claim the most fruitful fishing spots and Bears (especially males) will sometimes fight over the rights to a prime fishing spot. That's why some of the bears at Brooks falls are so beat up.

An often-injured Brooks Bear, 2011

Since Silver Salmon Creek tends to be an area for females and cubs, there is less fighting, although Crimpy Ear had beat up Agro pretty badly a few days before we arrived. That fight was probably more about protecting her cubs than about prime fishing.

Mom protects her cubs

We saw Crimpy Ear fishing in the creek ...

An experienced Bear

These Bears by this time of year were experienced fishers, so there weren't many false starts of misses. Just a jump and a catch. But, there were a few false starts.

One of the most amazing things we saw was Crimpy Ear catching two salmon at once (she shared one with the cubs)...

You have to have skill when you have babies to feed

Come to think of it, most of the fishing was by Crimpy Ear, who was small and who had two rather large cubs to feed. Agro, did a lot of sitting and a little fishing.

An ideal spot to rest

Perhaps she was just enjoying the view.

Brown Bears living near coastal regions will regularly eat crabs and clams; although we didn’t see the bears digging for mollusks or crustaceans, we did see shells on the beach, indicating they had been eating them. We did see a Bear digging clams in 2011 when we were on a cruise.