Grizzly Bears are omnivorous: pine nuts, tubers, grasses, rodents, moths, scavenged carcasses, but particularly when fattening up for hibernation, salmon. In the fall when rivers and streams are filled with spawning kokanee salmon, a grizzly grows fat. This year, however, the kokanee run is sparse and a number of grizzlies that depend on it are looking gaunt. Some may not make it through the winter.
A somewhat scrawny grizzly bear was foraging along a lakeshore. It did not look as if it were finding much.
It headed for a meadow and started eating grass, a grizzly staple, but not something that is rich in fat.
Time to sit awhile and ponder limited options.
If it is possible for a grizzly to look doleful, this is it.
This saddens me more than I can say – the more so as it’s a sign of times and things to come.
Your final shot is gut-wrenching – perfect by the way for a certain book very soon once again to be in the making. I really will be in touch.
Best wishes
Trevor
Trevor, sad indeed. Yet, I have no way to know if this is a trend or natural variation.
Reading an Alaska hunters guide for identifying black bears and grizzly age and genders it seems that up till five years old the young grizzlies will look scrawny and out of proportion. So this could be a three year old female looking normal.
Or not.
This is a good point Derek, since the one person we saw who said she could identify all the local bears seemed stumped on this one.
Any guesses on the sex? Male, with the wide head and thicker legs not tapering. My distinctly non specialist opinion.
Because the sadness/defeat in the eyes looks distinctly human, it is as though this bear could be a “poster child” to move people to think deeper about how we are living on this planet. I hope I’m anthropomorphising and this is “… a three year old female looking normal.”
While guiding Elderhostel Tours throughout the Mountain National Parks, we learned the term “opportunivors” to describe Grizzly eating habits…a most descriptive term to be sure: regretably, the opportunities are becoming fewer & fewer as expressd by the Grizz in your last photo.
Wow…the last photo is spectacular.