Day 81: Anan Wildlife Observatory

Bears! Bears! Bears! We got started early today because we wanted to be first to the forest service bear observatory this morning. We got there half an hour before opening and no one else was there - so, success! Actually, it did work out quite nicely in that we were there when they opened and no one else came for the first 1.5 hours. That quiet time was the best of our visit.

On our walk to the observatory, we saw there were definitely salmon running!

We had to walk half a mile from the beach to the observatory. We saw lots of fish in the river and had to dodge a couple bears on our way to the viewing platform. The bears were fortunately more interested in their fish than us.

On arrival, the ranger immediately sent us down to the photography hide by the river, because that’s the best place to see and get close to the bears. When I first got down, I thought there were no bears there.

Then I saw this brown bear head poking up out of the water.

A closer examination of the riverbank revealed a youngster watching mom fishing.

Mom decided full submersion was not the best technique and moved to fishing from a rock.

Mom called cub over before heading back down the river toward the lagoon.

Next a black bear caught a fish on the near side of the river.

The little black bear climbed up a fallen tree to the top of the bank to eat his catch in peace.

In the meantime, a brown bear caught his own salmon and headed up the same fallen tree with his prize.

He (she?) was so beautiful I couldn’t help taking more pictures.

That poor salmon, still not quite dead!

When the black bear saw the brown bear coming up the log, he quickly skedaddled, leaving the perch to the brown bear.

The ravens hung around, hoping for some scraps.

The brown bears were only present for the first hour or so we were there. After that it was just black bears. One of the more successful fisher-bears that we saw was a scruffy looking big boar with lots of scars that the rangers had named Wade.

According to the forest service ranger, Wade is very scrappy and fights with the other bears (hence the scars). When he caught his fish he would quickly go into a cave in the river-side rocks, eat it, then return for another fish. The other black bears seemed very cautious of him.

This small black bear kept his distance when he noticed Wade coming out of the rock cave.

You definitely need to be prepared to get wet, if you’re a salmon-fishing bear.

Success makes it all worthwhile.

We stayed watching the bears for close to three hours. The last hour had more and more people arriving, so we decided to leave before having to share the viewing platform started making me cranky. I’m not used to being around other people any more!

The sun had come out while we were bear-watching, so we stayed on the forest service float for a while after we got back to the boat and enjoyed the sun while having second coffee and visiting with one of the tour boat captains.

Behind Ryan you can see the floating cabin where the forest service staff live.

Anchoring by the wildlife observatory trailhead is pretty sketchy—Anan Bay has a steep, sandy bottom and very little shelter from the wind or currents. The Anan Bay float is for day use for boats up to 36 ft long and can hold four boats, so that worked for us!

We’re back in Wrangell again tonight, but tomorrow we head west again before moving south and will resume our explorations of the west side of Prince of Wales Island.