June, 2008 - The Second Trip

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       Three weeks have gone by and the snow capped world around Kachemak Bay has given way to green.  A lush carpeting of bright green grass, horse tail, and wild celery begins at the sea and creeps upwards to the icy mountain tips.  The foliage is slashed by swatches of dark green pines that cluster thick near the coast.  As I peer through the bush plane window, my mind unconsciously registers these trees as “hunter” green –and I contemplate how the killing of animals lies hidden, and thus normalized, in our vernacular.  The bush plane continues to rise above the coast line as we approach the cluster of triangular peaks that go on and on until the horizon line, peaks that one friend of mine described as looking like the troughs of waves in a storm.  We break from the coast, heading south-west across the Cook inlet towards the Katmai coast.  Tiny rock islands pepper the sea.  Seagulls reduced to specks of white swirl wildly around their rookerys like a swarm of gnats.  I peer down at the water hoping and scanning for whale spouts.  Today the water is glassy and smooth like a lake.  I hope the absence of white caps will make it easier to spot the frothy spouts of air from the humpbacks, minkes, and orcas who have all descended here – with thousands of other animals from around the globe – for the food that explodes under a never setting sun. 

    I’m popping with excitement as we reach the Katmai coast because we are headed to Swikshak bay where a baby humpback whale carcass has washed onto the beach.  Our pilot has been going to the carcass for a week and he has seen bears and even wolves feasting on it.  He reports that just this morning there were ten large males on the carcass.  John and I have been dieing to see the activity and feeding around a washed up whale carcass, and curse ourselves for not having told our pilot earlier to call us immediately if he ever sees one.  He reports that mostly huge male grizzlies have been eating the whale and he has also seen bears mating around the carcass.  One day he saw two light tan colored wolves try to sneak some meat, but they were chased off by the bears.  We guess that the wolves, along with possibly foxes and wolverines, might take over the feasting at night during the few hours of semi darkness. 

We reach a long stretch of sandy beach and the plane dips low over the carcass.  The pilot tips the plane sideways to get us a good view out the window.  The plane curves around and I see a huge, dark splotch in the sand that was once a baby humpback whale.  From the air the whale looks like a giant, brown blob.  There’s a large male grizzly bear standing on top of it, lording over this massive amount of meat.  The plane does another lap around the whale and there appears to be only one bear in the area.  A nearby log, however, is completely filled with human bear viewers.  Since the humans far out number the bears, we decide to head down to the bay where we camp, where there were a reported sixteen bears in the sedge meadows this morning. 

    Flying low over the sedge meadows we spot several groups of four or five bears!  We are amazed at how different everything looks from our trip in May.  The meadows are now filled with the bright chartreuse of sedge grass and several brown bears grazing on it.  Our pilot makes another smooth landing on the beach.  We hop out of the plane and head over the berm and towards a group of four bears. 

    Sitting down near them we realize there are several females and one large, dark brown male.  It is impossible not to notice the huge, drooping testicles of this undoubtably male bear.  This is the first time I’ve seen a grizzly bear’s testicles while the bear is standing up.  Quite often we struggle to even see a penis through their thick hair.  His elephantine genetalia is made even more pronounced since he is strutting through the meadow doing the “cowboy” walk – a grizzly male strut that involves bowing the back legs outwards and stiffly stomping one back leg at a time while swiveling the hips back and forth in an exagerated manner.  Males stomp around this way as a display of dominance or superiority and when males confront one another they will often do the cowboy walk.  This afternoon there are only females near the male, so his cowboy walk seems to be part of his mating behavior. 

    This male stomp, stomp, stomps across the meadow in the direction of a fluffy female.  She walks swiftly away from his advances, glancing nervously over her shoulder in his direction.  She comes closer and I notice she has a rectangular shaped scar directly underneath her right eye which will make identifying her in the future easy.  The male is also quite scarred.  Looking at his right side I notice that there is a huge patch of hair missing from the right side of his belly.  It almost looks as if he was shaved and I can notice a pointy nipple in the area.  I’ve never noticed or even wondered if male bears have nipples, but apparently, like human males, male bears have small nipples.  He also has a large, oval shaped scar on the back of one leg, and multiple smaller scars around his whole body.  He’s certainly not the largest male I’ve seen, but he is the biggest bear in the meadows this afternoon and his body certainly looks well lived in. 

    The male grizzly tromps towards two females who run off in different directions.  Swiftly moving away from the male, a blond female walks quickly towards where we are sitting in a small circle of spiky grass.  Seeing that the male is approaching, she looks at us and then moves our way.  She appears visibly agitated and uncomfortable with the advancing male.  She approaches us nervously, glancing at the male while walking closer to us.  She stops nearby and sits down.  She is absolutly gorgeous – with fluffy caramel colored hair flecked with very light blond fur.  She lowers her head and looks down at the ground for a few moments, as if she might eat.  I then notice her brown eyes peeking up at me as she decides what to do next.  The male is getting closer, moving at the same steady pace that I’ve noticed amongst all the males that I’ve witnessed doing mating behavior. 

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© 2008 Jessica Teel