There is a world somewhere between reality and fiction. Although ignored by many, it is very real and so are those living in it. This forum is about the natural world. Here, wild animals will be heard and respected. The forum offers a glimpse into an unknown world as well as a room with a view on the present and the future. Anyone able to speak on behalf of those living in the emerald forest and the deep blue sea is invited to join.
they're the identified specimens in the Katmai National Park, I haven't fully updated the topic yet.. I'm gonna need some time on that but the names should be up pretty soon. [img]images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img]
03-22-2015, 08:45 AM( This post was last modified: 03-22-2015, 09:00 AM by Roflcopters )
I spoke to one of the highly reputed rangers and he told me the male bears here have a high range of 1000lbs+ in september and judging from the pictures available.. even the females are easily capable of reaching 600lbs. Katmai Bears truly hit me by a surprise and now that i know about 50 specimens, I am more than confident that this is an extra-ordinary Brown bear group with large males and females..
Brotherbear, can you enlighten us and tell us how these guys compare to the Kodiaks and the Brown bears in the Russian Far East.. Also i looked at the bear records and bears shot just a few miles outside of Katmai have scored 1200lbs+ and not just one specimen, handful of them.. that's insane.
~I have no connection with the latest findings, but from all that I've read I would say that on average the typical Kodiak brown bear is roughly 200 pounds heavier than the typical Alaskan peninsula brown bear. I have a theory regarding these bears. Science places the Alaskan coastal brown bears as grizzlies while sport hunters claim them as Kodiaks. I believe that they are both right. I believe that, at the end of the Pleistocene, after the sea retreated, some of their ancestors became stranded on the Kodiak Islands while others were left on the coast of Alaska. The Kodiaks remained pure while the coastal brownies are occasionally breeding with inland grizzlies.As for the Ussuri brown bears of the Russian far east, the average mature male is, to my understanding, about 5.5 feet from nose to rump and weighs roughly 580 pounds. According to a post at shaggygod about trophy hunting, trophy black grizzly measure from 8 to 8.5 feet long. That is a big bear.
~~Fortress of the Grizzlies by Dan Wakeman and Wendy Shymanski:The Khutzeymateen is North America's first officially designated grizzly sanctuary, and it is the result of a worldwide effort to save the remaining large bears on our planet. Despite this sanctuary and the refuge that bears find at parks such as Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary in Alaska, these nomatic animals are becoming more rare as humans invade their habitat to log, mine, hunt, and build. Sanctuaries like the Khutzeymateen cannot save the species, but as anyone who meets the inhabitants of this wild valley will tell you, they remind us of why the great bears must be saved. - Dan Wakeman.Mountains guard the entrance to the fortress. Their cliffs rise up from the waters of 14-mile-long Khutzeymateen Inlet toward peaks over 6,500 feet high. Beyond these ramparts, at the point where the inlet meets the mud, silt, and fresh water of a large estuary, lies a valley of sedge fields, larch woods, and ancient spruce forests - the protected land of the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary.Sunlight glistens on Larch Creek, a side-valley tributary that tumbles over reddish rock into the Khutzeymateen estuary. Snow avalanches have cleared away patches of trees on the mountainsides, opening up meadows for cow parsnips, huckleberries, and fireweed. This is temperate rain forest country on the wild north coast of British Columbia, Canada, where the battles and burdens of human civilization, our yardsticks and ticking clocks, mean nothing. The people of the Tsimshian nation, who have known this valley for many generations, call it "K'tzim-a-deen." They suggest a variety of translations, including "a deep valley at the end of an inlet" and "the place where bears meet seals." To the grizzlies, it's a place of safety and survival.
06-26-2015, 02:16 PM( This post was last modified: 06-26-2015, 02:19 PM by brotherbear )
~~Fortress of the Grizzlies by Dan Wakeman and Wendy Shymanski - Bears of the Khutzeymateen:Fifteen years ago, Buffalo and Lefty were the two dominant grizzlies in the Khutzeymateen Valley.Buffalo looked like a large bison with his boxy stature, dark brown colouring, and hearty weight of 900 to 1,000 pounds. Solitary in nature and rarely seen, he was a confident, handsome bear with a slow and powerful walk, and he surely has a lot of offspring to his credit. He and Lucy mated regularly for about six years.Lefty looked more like a gorilla. Although about the same weight as Buffalo, he was not quite as good-looking. We called him Lefty because Buffalo bit his ear off in battle. Lefty had many major battle scars, including a partially deformed face and a three-foot-long scar on his side, which reflected the horrific battles that can take place over females and territory.No one has seen Buffalo for a few years now, and he would probably be over 30 if he is still alive. Lefty, who was seen mating with Lucy after Buffalo disappeared from the scene, is well into his late twenties.
~~There are now new powerful male grizzlies exhibiting dominant bear characteristics, particularly Scarface. At fifteen to eighteen years of age and 800 pounds, he is a brute force to be reckoned with.We meet Scarface one afternoon as we peacefully watch Lucy from the deck of 'Sun Chaser'. Suddenly we hear the crack of breaking trees and the huffing of a steam engine from the forest. As the crashing nears, Lucy pauses in her grazing, looks briefly toward the noise, then bolts as 800 pounds of muscle and anger emerge from the forest and charge. We clutch our binoculars more tightly while the huge male grizzly froths at the mouth, his hackles standing straight up on his hump. As his head swings ferociously from side to side, he lets loose a deep moan from his scarred mouth.This is the image of a bear that horror stories revolve around, and we are rudely jolted to reality - not all the bears in the Khutzeymateen are passive and amiable. This bear would not give a human a second chance, especially under the circumstances. His hormones are urging him to pass on his genes, but Lucy is not interested. Now we have unknowingly disturbed his love nest and his frustration has exploded. The usual agitation indicators - standing on his feet or huffing - are discarded. Instead, he makes a direct charge to show he means business.As Lucy runs terrified into the forest, Scarface follows in hot pursuit. At the forest edge he shoots one last furious glare at us before his black-brown body is swallowed by the trees.This is the first of our handful of encounters with Scarface. Most male bears of his size stay well back, hidden in the forest, except during mating season. Every time we see him, we receive the same greeting. Perhaps there are other sides to his personality, but we will never know for sure because Scarface is such an elusive creature.
06-27-2015, 02:14 PM( This post was last modified: 06-27-2015, 02:17 PM by brotherbear )
~~... continued ... One bear stands out from the rest of the grizzlies in the valley because of his unique character and appearance. In his younger years he looked comical - or maybe quirky. A large dark head with happy eyes and a long snout was attached to a blondish beige body. From this immature lean body extended the longest, fuzziest, dark brown front legs we had ever seen on a bear. His hind end and legs were skinny and gangly. He looked as if Mother Nature had placed all her leftover parts together to produce him. We would see him striding down the shoreline with his ears slightly back, always with the corners of his mouth upturned as if he were smiling and up to mischief. For this reason we called him Yogi.He was the instigator of fun with other bears. We often saw him in a group of newly weaned juveniles, provoking play fights and chases. ( After their mother abandons them, young bears often team together to survive. ) Yogi led his "gang of four"- another male and two females - for miles to check out new territory. They would walk up one side of the inlet from the estuary, swim across, and then walk down the other side, eating grass and exploring everything as they went. Yogi was the ringleader and teacher for the others, never showing aggression, just light-hearted play that would benefit him and the others later in their lives.Whenever a larger bear entered their territory, they would simply run as fast as they could. If an adult male grizzly catches a young bear, he will kill it, but young bears that are on the ground can usually escape.Bears are solitary by nature, however, and the Gang of Four drifted apart in their four-year-old season. If they meet again, it will be to mate or fight.By his third summer, Yogi's body had matuered and he was showing signs of becoming one of the dominant males in the valley, weighing approximately 650 pounds and standing roughly four feet to the top of his shoulder muscle hump. An aura of confidence radiated from him as he proudly strode down the shoreline.
~~Another day we see him playing with a lone wolf. The wolf skulks up to Yogi, low to the ground, then stops and stares at him. Yogi stares back, takes a step toward the wolf, and gives a single low huff. The wolf bolts, only to turn and repeat the game. There is no aggression or fright on either animal's part. Instead, two of the most feared creatures in North America appear to be enjoying each other's company, and they continue to play for fifteen minutes. ( Bears and wolves do seem to live companionably in the Khutzeymateen Valley without feeling the need to defend their territory from the other species. )
~~Since then, Yogi has steadily grown and physically changed into a mature, prominent bear. His legs remain long, and he has filled out to an impressive weight of approximately 900 pounds, with a two-foot-wide head and a height of about five feet to the top of his hump. He has lovely chestnut brown fur from head to toe. Although Yogi has grown into a massive bear, he remains the amiable, curious, polite bear we first met, with a mischievous twinkle in his placid eyes and a sneaky instigator grin on his beautiful soft face.
~~Fortress of the Grizzlies by Dan Wakeman and Wendy Shymanski - Bears of the Khutzeymateen
~~The Bears of Katmai by Matthias Breiter.Rambo - Rising up to his full, imposing height of over nine feet, Rambo rubs his back on the remains of a small tree, displaying his dominance. Numerous scars on his neck attest to the fact that such confrontations frequently have left their mark.No bear ever remains river sovereign uncontested; evidently the newcomer has sneaked up on Rambo, intending to seize the moment and take advantage of a surprise attack to move up in the hierarchy. However, the attacker has been a bit too optimistic in evaluating the situation. He quickly loses his edge as Rambo explodes from the water as if ejected, crashing full speed into the flank of the other bear and bowling him over. Now on top of the assailant, the advantage is all Rambo's; from the looks of it, serious if not fatal injury appears inevitable. With mouth agape and paws flying, Rambo bears down on his challenger. Yet just short of tearing into his opponent, he stops. For a few seconds, time seems to stand still. The two boars remain locked in combat. Then they part, and as if in slow motion, the defeated bear moves off in a stiff-legged gait, carrying a deep gash on his foreleg. Nor has the victor escaped uninjured. A gaping cut three inches long adorns Rambo's forehead. Numerous scars on his neck attest to the fact that such confrontations frequently leave their mark. However, Rambo is oblivious to such minor "scratches." He watches his rival walk off, then moves over to a stand of alders. With powerful blows from his front legs, he prunes a few of the little trees. Branches lie between his paws. Then he rises up on his hind legs and rubs his back against the trees, urinating at the same time.After mutilating two more trees, Rambo, too, walks off. Once again all is quiet at Brooks Falls.
~The Bears of Katmai by Matthias Breiter.I recognize Ester and her young. In the world of bears, where bigger is definitely better, she is positioned quite high up in the hierarchy. Weighing about nine hundred pounds, Ester is one of the largest females. Although in size she is still no match for the huge males, even they usually give her a wide berth when she has cubs.When Ester turns around to check on her young, the strange bear has moved between her and her offspring. In such situations, ignorance is not accepted as an excuse. Although unknowingly and without intent, the animal has broken one of the fundamental laws of bear society: never step between a mother bear and her young! Without hesitating, Ester charges, plowing through the water toward her unwitting opponent. He appears confused about what has caused such a radical response and tries to take refuge in flight, speeding off upstream for a few yards. But then he stops and turns around. It's better to take the charge head-on than be mowed down from behind. Also, one's backside is endowed with virtually no communicative abilities. Ester, like a hellcat trapped in the body of a bear, storms closer, throwing herself into the fray without slowing down. To absorb the impact, her adversary rises up slightly. Ester's front paws swing against the shoulder of the other bear. Then both face each other, their mouths agape. The roar of the assaulted bear can be heard a mile away where the racket wakens park visitors from their dreams. For several tense seconds both animals freeze. Then Ester and her opponent slowly, ungracefully, retreat backward Twenty yards away, the cubs stand next to each other in the grass, observing the conflict like disturbed visitors in an open-air theater.
~The Bears of Katmai by Matthias Breiter.Near its mouth, where the Brooks River loses itself in the immensity of Naknek Lake, I noticed a bear in the middle of the stream. Only the head is visible. From a distance, the animal could be mistaken for a walrus gone astray from its ocean home. The bear rises up in the water, takes a deep breath, puts his head on his chest, and submerges in one smooth motion. The huge, well-padded backside is visible for a fleeting moment, then the entire animal is gone. There is absolutely no question about its identity: the bear in the water is Diver. Like no other bruin, he has perfected the technique of underwater fishing as if the watery habitat were his by nature. According to the laws of physics, he should float on the surface like a cork. Excursions into the realm of fish should be close to impossible. Apparently, a good technique does wonders. Ten seconds later, Diver reappears in my field of vision, snorting loudly. Again he breaths in deeply, subjecting the river bottom to another thorough inspection. Diver submerges three times, reappearing each time with no digestible prey in his mouth. However, on the forth try, Diver breaks the surface with a salmon locked between his teeth. Many times he might gulp down his catch right there and then, riding the deep waters like a living buoy kept afloat by the layers of fat on his paunch and hips. This time, however, he swims to shore and drags himself halfway out of the water. There, just a few yards from me, he sinks down on his front legs and starts to eat the fish.Diver is the Methuselah among the bears of Brooks River. Rumors have grown up about his age. The record among bruins for the most years lived is held by a captive female that departed her zoo life at the biblical age ( for bears ) of forty-five years. In terms of seasons seen, Diver cannot compete with her. He has probably watched thirty summers go by so far. His best days have long since passed. Until a few years ago, he was the seldom-challenged sovereign at Brooks Falls. Few bears dared to dispute his lofty position. Today, he avoids all confrontations, having slipped far in the hierarchy. Yet, despite his loss in authority and the associated inability to defend the best fishing spots against younger, more dominant boars, Diver has been able to keep his weight. He is as voluminous as ever, presumably thanks to his exceptional fishing technique. It appears that, by means of diving for his quarry, he has secured for himself a food source not used by any other large boar, which in turn may be the reason for his longevity.
Brown Bear Directory
