The Bears are Back

After a decade of poor fish returns in our river, this year the salmon finally bounced back. And with them came the grizzly bears...

(Photo courtesy of Patrick Steffes who stayed at Wild Bear Lodge for a week earlier this month)

We really couldn’t have asked for a better bear viewing.

Just as Paul, a veteran guide who has been with us for almost a decade, emerged at one of our secret riverside spots a large male grizzly came into view.

Paul asked the four guests with him to get down and huddle up. And for the next half an hour they all watched mesmerised as the bear swam up and down, now further away, now closer, seizing red salmon from the river below.

 “Here I was , 63 years old, lying as still as a statue on the banks of a beautiful Canadian river,” one of our guests later wrote. “Only five metres away was this amazing creature – a wild grizzly bear.”

Paul, who has spent the last 40 years guiding in the mountains, wilderness and forests of British Columbia, told me: “I think it was the best viewing I have ever had.”

At first I thought the experience, the sort we have striven to provide our guests for the last 17 years, was a happy fluke. For the past decade the grizzly bears that once came down to our valley in numbers have proved all-too-elusive on our river.

But the very next day I was leading another group of guests and we had a similar viewing - perhaps not quite as close, but just as moving and dynamic. And when we set out on the raft for a middle-of-the-day float, we saw a third grizzly bear fishing.

When the guests had left Paul and I sat in the lodge totting up the bears we had seen in the previous three days. And slowly it began to sink in. The bears were back.

For me personally, and for the valley where I live in British Columbia, it’s been a rough decade.

In the very early years we had sometimes managed dozens of viewings of wild bears during the four-night holidays we offered our guests in the autumn.

But then, beginning nine or 10 years ago, the number of viewings steadily began to fall. We had one poor bear year, and then another, and soon it was becoming the new norm.

So why had the bears disappeared? Well you might ask. It all came down to the fish. And why had the fish disappeared? In short because a biologist who worked for the provincial government had the hubris to think he could outsmart nature.

Our ecosystem, like any other, is complex. But in essence the salmon, which come up our river to spawn in their fourth year, live in equilibrium in a large lake to the south of us with various types of trout.

Those trout, some of which are seen as trophy fish because of their size, eat the salmon, though not enough of them to seriously impact their population.

The result has been a fluctuating but relatively steady spawning population of a couple of hundred thousand salmon in our river each autumn.

And that’s how it was for centuries until said biologist decided to dip his oar in.

Using various techniques – including adding extra chemicals to the lake and playing with fishing quotas – the biologist decided he could pump up the number of trout.

It worked. But as the supercharged pulse of trout began to mature, so they gobbled up the salmon. And in less than two years they had scarfed down as many as 99 percent of them.

In our river the salmon count fell from hundreds of thousands to a mere five thousand. The bears went elsewhere. And many other animals also lost a vital source of protein.

Even the trees in our valley need the dying salmon – carried to them in the scat and droppings of ravens, coyotes, bears and eagles. It’s one of the reasons they get to be so big and old.

Too late, the minion in the ministry realised his mistake. The government reversed course and began to kill trout to try and save the ailing salmon. There was even talk that the salmon might never come back.

The dearth of bears was not all bad, I suppose. Lean times forced us to up our game. We invested in trail cameras to better understand what the bears were doing.

And we began to train as animal trackers. We studied and certified in skills that are as old as humanity itself, learning about everything from mouse tracks to figuring out intent and behaviour among bears, wolves and cougars by examining their gait.

We learned to be predictive, to sit quietly, and even began to pay attention to what the birds were telling us.

And then, this year, finally, the fish returned in numbers. The preliminary data has them at around 80,000 in our river, still a bit low by historical standards but a vast improvement over recent years.

And with the fish the bears have returned. In the last couple of weeks we have seen large males, a multitude of average-sized single bears, younger sub-adults (teenagers in human terms) and a mum with cubs.

One smallish grizzly bear came so close I had to actively stop him advancing with a gentle yipping. Another time a larger bear, scouring the river for fish, walked slowly within about 20 metres of us, casually indifferent to our presence as we snapped photos.

Not everything is exactly as it used to be.

Whereas two decades ago the grizzlies showed up in early September and were gone by late October, they now come nearly a month later. September is simply too warm these days, for both the bears and the fish.

And so we have also now changed what we offer.

Our September holidays, which will be quite a bit less expensive than they used to be, now focus on walks in old growth forests, river rafting and sub-alpine hikes  (where you still have a better-than-even chance of seeing grizzly bears feeding on berries.)

Then in October we will concentrate on grizzly bear-viewing down in the valley along our river.

At a personal level there have been times in the last decade when I was ready to throw in the proverbial towel. To hang up my binoculars and sell up.

My world fell apart when Kristin, my wife with whom I set up the business in 2006, died unexpectedly of cancer in early 2020. Covid then hollowed out funds we had managed to squirrel away.

But, just as it seemed the skies could get no darker, rays of light begin to shine through. I was offered a teaching job in Hungary lecturing smart young university students. I met a new woman, Kim, who was also emerging from dark times.

I began returning to Ukraine, an old haunt, to write about the war there and start up a charity for wounded veterans. I found unexpected hope and inspiration amid the suffering.

And, in parallel, came a realisation that this valley was still an important pillar of my life. Yes, the business would need energy and struggle to get back on its feet, but the effort would be worth it.

And now the bears are back. I’m taking it as an omen. And as a solid foundation for rebuilding this operation and what we offer our guests.

And so, since we are in peak bear season right now, it’s time to grab my binoculars, pull on my worn leather hiking boots, strap on a can of pepper spray – just in case, and head out onto the river.

I’m already wondering which secret spot to check, and which bears will be out fishing today.

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NEWS & LINKS

As the bears begin to disappear into their dens, we’ll be heading for Europe. First stop will be London where on Nov 9th Julius will be giving a talk with Gloria Dickie, who has just published a book, Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future. Kim will be moderating. Come to the Frontline Club in Paddington if you feel like polishing your skills on bear behaviour, catching up on how bears are doing worldwide, or simply joining us for a drink and a chat in the club bar afterwards. We’d be delighted to see you. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/.../panel-discussion-bears...