Aug 17 – Anan Bear Observatory
Today we are headed into visit the bears at the Anan bear observatory. It was a sunny warm day and a great day for both a hike and viewing bears. And there were bears to view. With all the rain in the past couple weeks the creek was running high, hard, and fast making it more difficult for the bears to fish. We guessed that the water level was about ½ again higher than when we were last here in 2013. The ranger told us that a couple days ago it was running even higher than today. When we got there, there was one black bear wandering around. He was mid-sized and per the Ranger almost 20 years old. Soon another bigger and much rounder (aka fatter) black bear came, he wanted the same fishing spot that the other bear had but that was not going to happen. He looked but did not approach and moved down the creek a bit. The bigger one kept moving around and never did find his new fishing hole on either side of the creek. He came over and wandered around the viewing deck a while and went down to the creek on our side. A mid-sized brown bear came along and tried his/her hand at fishing downstream. While we were down watching the other two from the viewing blind, we were told that the brown crossed over to the human side of the creek and walked up to the viewing area. Apparently he/she decided to sniff around the ‘outhouse’ while a boy about 13 was inside it. Nothing too exciting for the kid but his mom was apparently a bit ‘excited’. The ranger just called to the kid and told him to stay inside until told it was clear. His father apparently got some good bear and outhouse photos. LOL
Later the fat bear went back to the other side of the creek and once again decided it was his turn at the prize fishing hole. He was not as aggressive as the other bear, so I figured he must be younger. I asked the ranger if she knew his age and she said that it was about 10 yrs. old. That would fully explain why the smaller one was winning all the fishing hole discussions. That special fishing hole came complete with a cave in which to eat in privacy. At one point the big guy decided to go thru the cave and stick his head out and try to convince the other guy now with a fish to move. That did not work, in fact after the best parts of the fish had been consumed that bear moved into the cave and we could hear lots of loud growling and commotion behind that rock, then all of a sudden the larger bear came out of the cave (the way he went in) very quickly. He just stood there for a bit sulking, then walked on down the creek. We never did see him catch a fish. We got some fairly good photos and video of the bears.
I think we ended up seeing about 5-6 different bear during our bear adventure.
New cabin at Anan
Part of the trail – boardwalk into Anan
20-year-old male with fish for lunch
10-year-old bear who was not getting any fish or his favorite fishing hole.
Action shot of fish catching. This fish is thrashing for his life …. Lost!
Bear visiting us at the viewing deck.
Bear sitting just outside the fence at the viewing area.
By the way the fence is about 3 feet tall.
Brown bear in the creek
Brown bear crossing the creek
The lower creek
After our bear adventure we went by dinghy back to Fool’s bay for a nice warm evening in the sunshine. Caught more crab and prawn. Dinner, movie, and bedtime.
No comments:
Post a Comment