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Paula and her cub Racer Page 2 of 3
Paula had dominated the river for several days. She was easily the most successful bear fishing, and she liked to occupy a certain spot in the river – an area near a sand bar that was midway between the beach and where the river met the ocean edge at low tide. We arrived one evening to find a lot more bears had congregated at the river since the previous evening.
A huge and incredibly wide male named Tank was occupying the spot in the river previously held by Paula. He was at the front of the pack of bears, and there were fish jumping left and right as they made there way back out to the ocean. They had to pass Tank first on this journey back out to sea. Tank was probably three times as wide as Paula, marbled with dark fur, and had a humungous square head. He was standing in the water, scanning for fish, but every time a fish jumped he just stood there. Fish after fish would flip up out of the water, and scurry off, yet he wasn’t chasing them down. The agitation of the bears behind him was palpable because they too could hear the salmon splashing and see their wakes. On the few occasions that Tank did go after a fish, he would run a few steps and then leap onto the water in a huge belly flop. His belly flop method wasn’t having any success. Meanwhile Paula and Racer stood behind him, trying their best to fish, but all the fish were bunching up in front of Tank. His huge body stood between Paula and her next meal.
Finally Paula’s patience ran out. She ran up to Tank, stopped at his right shoulder, stuck her snout in his face and let out a huge, loud, thundering roar that resonated from deep in her belly. Tank slowly turned his head away from Paula and silently walked off. Paula and Racer took over “their” spot, and Tank found a new spot in the river a good distance behind them. Now at the front of the fishing pack, Paula immediately caught the first fish that jumped. One thing about bears that is clear – size doesn’t determine everything. It can be just as much about attitude, and Paula clearly showed who was dominant in this river tonight. You’ll notice in documentaries, or books on bears that people will always say that the largest males dominate and control "the best” fishing spots. But if you observe bears, without a bias towards male domination, you will realize that neither size nor gender necessarily determine dominance. In the bear world it can be just as much about attitude, experience and energy.
Speaking of size and attitude, this same day Racer charged an adult male over twice his size! An extremely dark brown male, almost black he was so dark, joined the fishing action at the river. He was hanging around close to Paula and Racer, but not interfering with them in the least. Out of the blue, Racer charges this bear who was over twice his height and size. The bear, who we ended up naming Long Legs because he is so incredibly tall, turned his face away from Racer, and while he didn’t retreat, he didn’t even growl back at Racer. Racer charged him several times for the next hour or so, and at one point they got too close for Paula’s comfort.
Paula glanced over and saw how close they were to each other, and rushed full speed over to them to intervene if necessary. Like almost every bear on bear encounter there were no physical blows, and all parties slowly went back to fishing. It was later that Brad (a bear viewing guide) asked us if we had seen Racer charge that male. He told us that he was pretty sure that the adult bear, Long Legs, was a grown up son of Paula’s and that him and Racer were half brothers. Brad believed that Paula and Racer were familiar with Long Legs, and that was why Long Legs let Racer get away with being so brazen. In any case, it goes to show you that when it comes to bear behavior things are a lot more socially complex than big equals power, or that size always determines dominance.
Maybe ten or fifteen minutes later Tank took off running after a fish. The fish ended up dodging to the left, and ultimately headed straight for Paula. Tank had his eyes on the prize and wasn’t aware of where he was going. Suddenly, he looked up to notice that he was headed straight for a collision course with Paula, who was now staring at the chase in progress. Tank saw Paula and slammed on the breaks, abandoning his fish and skidding to a stop. Paula reacted with lighting speed and pursued Tank’s fish. She picked up the trail of water sliced by fins that was rushing by, and ran down Tank’s fish in a matter of seconds. She bit it in half, and Racer grabbed his piece and trotted off with another good meal in his mouth. Tank’s fishing technique was a unique one. He would lunge his upper body and arms forward through the water, a motion half way between a belly flop and a deliberate splash. His body would create a big wave that might pull a salmon to the surface, or stun them with the force of the moving water. One time Tank flopped especially hard into the water, and the wave he made was so large, that it drove almost ten salmon up to the surface of the water. The huge bunch of salmon was propelled backwards, and up-river and they skidded along for a few seconds in the wake of Tank’s wave. Tank, however, didn’t bother to chase any of the Salmon and they all got away. In fact we never saw Tank catch any fish with this technique while he occupied the front spot on the river that evening. After he was usurped by Paula, he still fished behind her, but I can't remember whether or not he was successful.
© 2008 Jessica Teel |
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