Grizzly using claws to open clamshellA couple days ago, a video tour with Director Scott Edgett showed many of the changes in progress at the Bear Center. These two- to three-minute videos can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXoCz-nn5qM, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd4ad_eMAqk, and at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFpjjyAY3S4.
Candidates for the upper wall in the Bear Center are these pictures of brown bears that mostly ignored the photographer as they rested or passed by in Katmai National Park in southwestern Alaska. The bears had gathered to graze, dig clams, and catch salmon in the Hallo Bay area of the park. They were used to seeing people, so they went about their lives with little concern about an inconsequential human. This was the area where Tim Treadwell had waded in salmon streams with the big bears, sat next to mother bears playing with their cubs, and even touched some of them. Those actions were not what got him killed. When a poor salmon run made salmon scarce in the interior, non-habituated bears came to the coast. It is unknown which bear killed him. 
Timothy Treadwell photographing grizzliesIt is known that he emerged from his tent and tried to chase a bear away on a day when he was packed and ready to fly out but couldn’t go because of bad weather. He had been chasing bears away from his tent like that for 13 years, but on this occasion he may have encountered an unfamiliar bear that was extra hungry and reacted defensively to him. His remains were found in the stomach of a big bear, but big bears can take food away from smaller bears, so we don’t know which bear was the culprit. The picture (not for the upper wall) shows Tim on the shore of Hallo Bay. The bear pictures show a mature female resting on a log washed a quarter mile inland during an unusually high tide, a big male wading by at dawn, and a big male scouring the ocean bottom for clams at low tide, and a mature female delicately using her claws to open a clam she dug up at low tide. In my 11 years walking among these bears, I’ve never felt threatened—more ignored.
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| Grizzly in water at dawn | Grizzly at dawn | Grizzly on log |
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center