During the last weeks of May, my partner was performing bear den and bear stream surveys. They spent two weeks looking for bear dens running over 100 transects and only saw three dens. Brown bears dig their dens in higher elevations usually around 1300 feet. With all the snow we had last winter and the cold spring bears were not leaving their cozy dens. It was a total surprise that they saw so few dens.
Next they flew over streams looking for the bears that had emerged. Only a few boars were seen. The were only one or two females and no family groups were seen at all. The surveys were to see how fall hunting had effected the population but with all them still asleep, we did not learn a whole lot.
Jumping to October 1st and there is exciting news from Brooks Camp. Probably not great news to most of you but exciting. Seems one of the big boars chased a subadult down the valley road yesterday. He evidently caught it and killed it. Then he proceeded to eat it. One of the contractors working at camp caught the whole thing on video. I have not seen it yet but I am sure some day in the future it will be on you tube for all of us to enjoy.
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