Category Archives: Grizzly Bears

Grizzly bear photos. Notes related to grizzlies, grizzly bears and grizzly or brown bear photos. Habitat and environmental issues relating to grizzly bears, and anything else that might have something to do with the Great Bear Who Walks Like a Man. (Ursus arctos)

Grizzly bear, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska

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Grizzly bear, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska

Hey Folks,

I’m out in the field again, so I’ll pre-post a few more images from my last trip here, scheduled for every other day or so while I’m away. I’ll be gone 2 weeks, so we’ll see how it goes.

Beth asked ‘did I get close enough for any images with the bears’ in a recent thread. Well, this particular evening, I was shooting Lesser Scaups (ducks) on a small pond in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, and had been waiting for about an hour for the ducks to come close enough.

They’re pretty savvy, for relatively small creatures. They know how far they have to remain from me to avoid getting their pictures taken, depending on what lens I have on my camera.

So, after a while, I look in my rear vision mirror, and here’s a grizzly, about 30′ behind my truck. I like ducks and all, but I’ll take a grizzly photo over a duck, any day. Particularly when the ducks are too far for a decent photo.

So I hopped out of the truck to get a better angle, and took a couple of images before this young fella wandered into the brush nearby.

Grizzly bear, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Cheers

Carl

Say no to Aerial Predator Extermination in Alaska

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Grizzly bear sow and cub, nuzzling, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

I read yesterday afternoon of a couple of pieces of legislation currently under consideration in Alaska that concern me greatly. Bill SB 176 and bill HB 348 are proposals by the Alaska Board of Game that prepare for a mandate by the Board of Game to pursue what they call “aerial predator control programs” of wolves, brown bears and wolverines. SB 176 is an attempt to give the Board of Game free reign over the decision making process, with no requisite consideration of input from the scientific community – i.e., if the folks on the Board feel like mandating aerial shooting, or den killings of wolf pups, they need show no concern or evidence of supporting scientific study. HB 348 is a proposal to shift wildlife to a category they call “public assets”, which includes minerals, oil, and so forth, effectively removing them from public voice. This means the Board of Game can then make decisions such as aerial shooting with no input from or responsibility to the people of Alaska. I’ve written to local legislators here in Alaska on this issue, and I thought I’d post an amalgam of my letters here. Continue reading →

A Little Web Design time.

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A young grizzly bear cub near Brooks River, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks

Hey Folks,

So what have I been up to all this time, if I wasn’t pushing my van around Alaska in the winter? Well, I’ve been updating my website/s, giving them some new content and a slight aesthetic overhaul as well. Nothing too major, but learning a few things about design and tweaking some little things. One of things I’ve been working on is integrating a coding technique called “Flash” into the web pages. It’s pretty cool, though I know some web users are averse to Flash stuff.

For all you “non-web-design” people (i.e., my dad) “Flash” is Continue reading →

Grizzly bear photo, Denali National Park, Alaska

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Grizzly bear, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks

Few animals reign a landscape like the grizzly bear does the tundra, in my opinion. Grizzlies are absolutely awesome, in every sense of the word. Seeing one can be an amazing experience, even for those of us who’ve been fortunate enough to see quite a number of bears in our lives. Photographing in Katmai National Park is beyond words. I took my parents there this September; though reluctant to make that trip part of their journey, I was finally able to talk them into it. They both say how glad they are that we went, and how that was probably the highlight of their trip. We were also fortunate enough to see a few grizzlies in Denali National Park, even up relatively close (when we were in a shuttle bus, not hiking on the ground). This grizzly bear photo I shot on my earlier trip to Denali, with my buddy Doug from Atlanta. Doug’s an old country boy from Georgia (“born ‘n raised!”), so seeing a grizzly bear was quite a thrill for him. Continue reading →

Welcome back – Grizzly bear, Alaska.

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Brown bear, or grizzly bear, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks

Welcome back to the journal. I apologize for such a lengthy delay between posts. It’s been a lot of time in the backcountry, and very little time at the computer – which is just how I like it. I’m still traveling, in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada, at the moment, riding ’round with my parents for a few weeks, before I return to Alaska.

I won’t go thru all the details of my travels for this last few months, other than to say it’s been awesome. The weather has been very nice this summer, for the most part, and the hiking second to none.

This photo is of a bear we call “Evander”, because he lost an ear in a fight a few years back. He’s one of the largest bears I’ve seen, and here he is in his prime, fat and ready for the winter. I’ve been fortunate to photograph him a number of times now, and every time I’ve run across him it’s been an awesome experience for me. Thanks Evander, for being such a cool bear!

I’ll try to write some more along the way here, and add some updates of my trips during the summer, and a few notes about what I’m up to.

Thanks folks

Cheers

Carl

Grizzly bears, Yukon Territory, Canada.

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Grizzly sow and cub, Yukon Territory, Canada.

Hey Folks,

Well, here’s a quick follow up. Ron inspired this post with his bear photos from his trip into the Yukon and BC. I shot these bears along the Alcan highway on my way north this summer. I sat in the vehicle, and shot out the window, so I allowed myself to get pretty close. The bears were very tolerant if I moved slowly, didn’t make a lot of noise and was generally respectful towards them. Other travellers stopped, and generally did the same, so we all had a nice time. However, some folks just amaze me.

This one guy drives by, screeches to a halt, backs up, looks at the bears for a while, opens his vehicle door, steps out, walks towards the bears (there were 3, these 2 and another cub), and starts taking pictures. I’m thinking “now this is crazy!” .. but I didn’t say anything .. the bears pretty much ignored him, at first. Then they started showing a little more interest, and I leaned out my window and said “hey man, if I were you, I’d hop back in the car. Those bears can move pretty fast, and it’s not worth messing around near them.”

He goes: “Ya think so?”

I said “yeah, you might wanna get back in your truck”.

He says “OK. I wonder momma bear is.”

I shook my head, once, twice, and then said “yeah, I have no idea. You better get back in your truck, sir”.

Fortunately, he did, and all was well. I do love a happy ending.

Cheers

Carl

PS – Here’s another photo of one of the cubs:

Grizzly bear cub feeds on wildflowers, Yukon Territory, Canada.

Grizzly bear cub, Yukon Territory, Canada.

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Grizzly bear cub, Yukon Territory, Canada.

hey Folks

Well, I made it. Many, many miles of sitting behind my steering wheel finally got me up to Alaska. And whata gorgeous day it is to arrive. This morning, as I made my way through the final couple hundred miles of the Yukon Territory, I saw moose, tundra swans, grizzly bears and a coyote. I managed to take a few images of the coyote, and also the bears as they grazed on the wildflowers and grasses. I saw a number of black bears in western and northern BC, but no grizzlies. Grizzlies are SO cool, it’s always a treat to see them, Continue reading →

Grizzly bear, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska

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Grizzly bear, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska

Hey Folks,

I’ve been reading a little about a recent case of a bear attack, this time in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Fortunately, the fellow who was mauled is alive. Here’s one version of the story.

A lot of discussion has focused on this incident on various nature photography forums. Much of that discussion revolves around the potential for this kind of thing to be a vehicle for new, tighter regulations brought into place by the National Parks’ Service, placing ever tighter restrictions on photographers and the activities they engage. While I think that’s a worthy discussion, hopefully it’s not the be sole focus of our concern. Firstly, I hope the guy’s OK. I’ve been close enough to many grizzly bears that I can barely (now there’s a great pun) imagine how terrible it must be to be mauled by one. Continue reading →