Sleeping Bear

Her Story as told by Dick Sheremeta

Ever see a Grizzly Bear catching 40 winks while sitting in a river?   I had never seen one either - until! It was my first of several visits to Coastal Alaska, and I had spent four days observing Brown Coastal Bears (Grizzly Bears) at McNeil River Falls on the Alaskan Peninsula some 290 miles southwest of Anchorage.  The Falls create a natural barrier to salmon as they attempt to return upstream from the ocean to their natural spawning grounds during June through August each year.  This bottleneck proves to be a boon for bears looking to bulk-up on the protein rich salmon in preparation for next winter’s hibernation as thousands of salmon congregate to be readily harvested.   I had the privilege of watching many different bears fishing for spawning salmon over the four day period with as many as 20 bears active at the falls during any one time.  Each day many of the same bears arrived to fish for salmon almost as if on schedule.  It didn’t take long to understand that not only did each bear have its own preferred fishing station but also its own preferred fishing style – be it plunging, snorkeling, scooping or trapping.  The other thing that became readily apparent was that once a bear was sufficiently sated, it would amble up out of the river and plot down in the grass nearby for a short nap before returning to the River to resume fishing – repeating this process over and over throughout the day.  One adult female bear, named Yolanda by local guides, was particular interesting to watch – not only was she fairly high up in the bear pecking order thus allowing her unchallenged access to her favorite spot, but she was an excellent fisherwoman – snatching fish repeatedly time after time.  On my last day out at the Falls, she was particularly active.  She would snare a large fish and walk it into the shallows where she would sit and consume it at her leisure.  She did this time and time again but never did we see her leave the water to take a nap break like all the other bears routinely did.  Well, I guess all this frantic activity finally got the best of her – she wandered into the calm pool just as she had done numerous times before, sat down, cradled her catch under her arm and promptly nodded off.  Unfortunately, her snooze was fairly short lived since her little slumber pad also happened to be an active byway for other bears traveling to and from the River – after a few moments of blissful slumber she was rudely awakened by some other denizen splashing through the water.  Even though the scene was short-lived, it was a once in a million moment that I was lucky enough to document and capture with my camera. 

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