I got back from my vacation to Alaska on Sunday evening. I went
with my Dad and older brother, and we saw lots of great wildlife and
did a lot of fishing. And oh yea we saw some incredible scenery.
On the first day we took a tour of Kenai Fjords National Park by
boat. We say a great deal of wildlife, including humpback whales,
porpoises, orcas, and we also spotted this Black Bear swimming
across the ocean toward an island, then climbing up a nearly sheer
cliff to vanish into some bushes.
Later on that same tour we noticed this Sea Otter floating around,
wiping some sleep out of his eyes as we approached.
We had the opportunity to travel by float plane to Katmai National
Wildlife refuge, which is a windswept wasteland shaped by glaciers
and dotted with hundreds of small lakes. The Red Salmon were
spawning in record numbers this year, which meant the bears had
mostly eaten their fill of salmon by the time we got there. But
this one at least decided to bring her three cubs to the river to
grab a quick bite or two. We got much closer to a different set of
bears, but these pictures are better since the light was low at the
other location and we couldn’t get good shutter speeds.
The cubs were very young and extremely cute. This one climbed this
small tree and was chewing on the branch while checking us out. I
wanted to go and give him a great big hug (must…resist…pun) but
I don’t think Mama bear would have appreciated that. These are
Alaskan Brown Bears.
