Russian Brown Bears

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One very interesting article concerning Kamchatka bears with great photos. To see the photos you have to use link to see original article.


Quotes:

"Kamchatka diaries: How to meet a bear and survive
TRAVEL JUNE 02 2015 SPECIAL TO RBTH DIANA SEREBRENNIKOVA, INSIBERIA.COM

In August 2014, Siberian journalist Diana Serebrennikova went to Kurile Lake to assist the employees of the Yuzhno-Kamchatsky Wildlife Reserve during the tourist season and see how people and bears have learned to live together on their shared territory.


Even though I was born in Siberia, for me the bear has always been the distant master of taiga and I could not wait to see it in its natural habitat. But is it possible to survive an encounter with this formidable predator? In the Yuzhno-Kamchatsky reserve in the Russian Far East it is possible to safely observe fishing bears that come to Kurile Lake in large numbers during the salmon’s spawning season."

"After my application was accepted on the website, I was lucky enough to become a volunteer at the Yuzhno-Kamchatsky reserve for a whole month."

"But even among the bears of Kamchatka the ones that live around Kurile Lake are the luckiest, as this is one of the rare places where it is possible to easily access large amounts of high-quality protein-based food."

"When finally we were in the sky, passengers pressed up against the windows to enjoy the massive scale of the conservation area. In an hour or so, the urban environment of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky was replaced by wild and intact nature: Tall active and dormant volcanos, meandering kilometer-long rivers and impassable forests."


Regardless of their stern appearance and isolated life among predators, the preserve’s inspectors were not reserved and unsociable. After an hour they were joking happily, discussing recent events and accepting freshly baked “blini” (pancakes). I took advantage of this break to ask them some questions about their life, which is lived so close to bears.
“How did you manage to achieve an understanding with the bears?” I asked. “I mean, you are constantly patrolling the territory of the preserve. Probably you have met bears many times under different circumstances.”

“Why should we fight?” joked Anatoly Lazarenko, one of the senior staff members. “We are working for their own good. Bears live not only by their instincts. They can think, they can evaluate different situations. And some of them even take advantage of us.” Lazarenko exchanged winks with his colleagues.
“I remember one she-bear, who saw me as an excellent nanny for her cubs,” Lazarenko continued. “At that time I was repairing a boat on the shore and every time I would start my work, the bear would come and leave her cubs with me. And she herself would swim away and fish 300 meters from the shore. If a large bear came out to the lake, the cubs would hide from it at my feet. When I would stop work for the day and leave, the mother would return and shepherd her cubs away again.”
“And there have not been any unpleasant encounters all this time?” I asked.

“Well, of course there were, you can’t get around them,” Lazarenko said. “In seven years we’ve had time to get to know many of the bears near Kurile Lake, to learn about their temperaments, behavior and habits. But some of them come here from other places and we don’t know what they have in mind, what they have been eating and if they have fallen into bear traps before. These individuals are very aggressive and they could use any opportunity to attack.”

Whole article here: https://www.rbth.com/travel/2015/02/06/k...stay_alive Reply