Chatham Strait near Basket Bay
Imagine our luck! This morning found us cruising Chatham Strait, hugging the coast along Chichagof Island. It was 0640 and the natural history staff of the Sea Lion was out on deck, scanning the ocean for the blows and flukes of the graceful humpbacks or the unmistakable dorsal fin of an orca whale slicing through the dark surface of the sea. But, our destiny was not to be focused on marine creatures early this morning. No—instead we were captivated by the sight of a brown bear casually feeding in the intertidal zone. An early wakeup call brought almost everyone out on deck to watch this rather small female bear eat her breakfast before we had a chance to have ours! We know that this one was a female because of the direction of the stream of urine she produced during the time we were watching her. This, or viewing mating behavior or seeing a sow with cubs are the only reliable ways to determine the sex of a bear at a distance. To our delight, another much larger brown bear appeared a short distance down the beach, moving away from the individual pictured above. After the second bear disappeared up a salmon stream, no doubt with the intention to land one of the incredibly numerous salmon jumping all around us, we continued to watch as the sow headed north. After quite a long time, she suddenly became watchful and then took off at a run going back in the direction she had come. The reason why was plain to see. A third bear, also significantly more robust in size then her, had appeared on the shore and was ambling towards the sow. Bears are typically unsocial animals, preferring to be alone. They are generally only found together in a few instances; a sow with cubs, siblings spending their first year without their mother, for several days during mating and at particularly productive salmon streams. Bear number three was in sight only a short time before he, too, disappeared into the dense forest above the high tide line.
Later in the morning, we found the humpbacks we had been looking for earlier and spent some time enjoying their company before repositioning for our afternoon activities. We had a pair of islands and the surrounding waters all to ourselves as we enjoyed several hours of paddling, hiking and cruising by Zodiac.
Imagine our luck! This morning found us cruising Chatham Strait, hugging the coast along Chichagof Island. It was 0640 and the natural history staff of the Sea Lion was out on deck, scanning the ocean for the blows and flukes of the graceful humpbacks or the unmistakable dorsal fin of an orca whale slicing through the dark surface of the sea. But, our destiny was not to be focused on marine creatures early this morning. No—instead we were captivated by the sight of a brown bear casually feeding in the intertidal zone. An early wakeup call brought almost everyone out on deck to watch this rather small female bear eat her breakfast before we had a chance to have ours! We know that this one was a female because of the direction of the stream of urine she produced during the time we were watching her. This, or viewing mating behavior or seeing a sow with cubs are the only reliable ways to determine the sex of a bear at a distance. To our delight, another much larger brown bear appeared a short distance down the beach, moving away from the individual pictured above. After the second bear disappeared up a salmon stream, no doubt with the intention to land one of the incredibly numerous salmon jumping all around us, we continued to watch as the sow headed north. After quite a long time, she suddenly became watchful and then took off at a run going back in the direction she had come. The reason why was plain to see. A third bear, also significantly more robust in size then her, had appeared on the shore and was ambling towards the sow. Bears are typically unsocial animals, preferring to be alone. They are generally only found together in a few instances; a sow with cubs, siblings spending their first year without their mother, for several days during mating and at particularly productive salmon streams. Bear number three was in sight only a short time before he, too, disappeared into the dense forest above the high tide line.
Later in the morning, we found the humpbacks we had been looking for earlier and spent some time enjoying their company before repositioning for our afternoon activities. We had a pair of islands and the surrounding waters all to ourselves as we enjoyed several hours of paddling, hiking and cruising by Zodiac.
