BEAR VIEWING KATMAI NATIONAL PARK 2010 SEASON REPORT

Here we are kicking off another season of bear, wildlife viewing and photography on the Alagnak river in Katmai National Park Alaska. The most noticeable difference between the 2010 and 2009 season is the unusually high water level on the Alagnak river this year. The mountains where still covered with snow and we are not short of rain by any stretch of the imagination. This might present a problem for the bears as far as catching fish is concerned but as I notice quickly the bears learned to adapt by moving into some of the back braids where water levels are lower and fine tuned there techniques for tracking and catching salmon. By June 28th we where starting to see bears in good numbers 7 to 10 daily and on July 1st the bears where in full swing 14 to 20 where being viewed and photographed fishing. The Salmon where making there way up river to a  area we call Katmai Flats around mile 45 on the Alagnak river the bears where gorging themselves on 6 to 10 pound Sockeye Salmon, that is the ones who learned to adapt, others were still having a tuff time cathing fish. We had our annual visit from a resident bear called Snaggle tooth and it was certainly refreshing to see he made it another season. Snaggle tooth is a 8 to 10 year old male with many battle related scars and atrade mark K-9 tooth that protrudes horizontally from his mouth. This season has been filled with some of the most passionate wildlife enthusiasts and wildlife photographers I have ever had the pleasure to guide. Coming back for a second straight season is well known wildlife professional photographer Chas Glatzer. Chas's photograph of a bear charging on a creek up by Kukaklek lake made it to the cover of popular photography in March 2010. Chas runs photography workshops here at the lodge and as always his group had a grand time as they shot approximately 700 to 1000 images per day per photographer ("That's a lot of memory"). The lodge hosted 6 different countries of wildlife Photographers and enthusiasts in one week (Scottland, England, India, Austraila, South Africa and United States) this has been one of the most cultural weeks in the lodges history. We can truly say after seeing a sample of each of the photographers images everyone is going home with very unique wildlife (brown bear) Photos. From the novice photographer with a point and shoot camera to the professional with the big 500 mm lens everyone had a wonderful productive time. With such a outstanding first half of the season we look forward to a second half of even more bears as we await the arrival of the next run of Salmon (Chum Salmon). So there you have it friends lots of bears, wildlife and salmon here on the Alagnak River.If you too would like to have a true wilderness bear and wildlife photography experience with north Americas largest land predator contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Bear Viewing In Katmai National Park

Bear Viewing Katmai National Park

Katmai National Park is home to more then 3,500 of Alaska's population of 30,000 grizzly bears (brown bears). Bear viewing in Katmai is the only place in the world that grizzly bears have become habituated to humans without severe negative consequences happening to the bear. There are several reasons why this is, first and foremost is that all the guides and guests that come to Katmai treat the bears with the utmost of respect. In turn the bears have become tolerant of our non threatening behavior gracing us with all the wonderful photos our memory cards are able to hold. Grizzly bear viewing in Katmai is a wonderful experience and as long as we give the brown bears habitat the protection it needs for the bears to continue there natural cycle of life and we show them respect and maintain a non threatening posture this co-existence between the Katmai bear viewer and Katmai bear should go on and on.