I'm going to start this entry by explaining that my exposure to and experience with wildlife has been minimal - until now, that is. In fact, I was starting to believe that I must have some inherent wildlife repellent, because I haven't seen anything bigger than a mole since moving to British Columbia almost two years ago. (Well, there were those rather docile mountain goats...) All of that changed last Sunday. I took the day to drive Highway 3 all the way through Osoyoos to Vancouver in my new vehicle.
As I rounded a corner on the highway, I saw several cars pulled over to the side - an automatic signal that something is worth seeing in this neck of the woods. I followed suit, and was shocked to see this massive brown bear with a magnificent coat foraging in a clearing adjacent to the road. As it happened, I had the right lens on my camera, laying on the passenger seat. Not knowing how long the opportunity would last, I grabbed it, popped open the sunroof and climbed on up. There was NO WAY I was going to leave the car. The bear was 30 meters away at most. Well Mr Bear was pretty darn comfortable because he wasn't going anywhere. He (or she) put on quite a show, eating buckets full of grass right before our eyes. If these pictures are a little soft, it's because I was shaking like a leaf from both fear and excitement.
In front of me was a family driving a large truck. The father (Chris) was standing on the top of the storage box he had on the flat bed, a full metre or two higher than I could get, even if I stood on the armrest of my new "sissy truck". The bear was on slightly higher ground, and he had the better vantage point, by far. The bear didn't seem to be threatened, so when Chris and his wife (Chrissy) said, "You can climb up here if you want", I left the protective shell of my vehicle and climbed on up. (Chris and Chrissy, If you are reading, thanks so much - all of these images were taken from your truck.)
Ten, fifteen minutes went by, and we were happily chatting about how amazing this was, when the bear became suddenly attentive to something. We turned to look, and a man was APPROACHING THE BEAR!!$%$**!! Grizzly Adams himself had climbed down the ditch at the side of the road, and up the embankment, waving his cell phone camera out in front of him like a protective shield. Proving once again, that many people are dumber than animals, he had spooked the bear. I had never seen a bear run before, and I hope to never again. At least it went in the direction AWAY FROM THE PEOPLE. Perhaps what Mr Adams didn't realize was that the money shot was not going to be his low resolution phone picture of the bear, but my close-up of him being mauled. Honestly!!!
The bear didn't go very far, but he had moved out of good camera range. I stayed around just in case it came back, but had to be satisfied with what I had got. I climbed back into the driver's seat and went along my way. A couple of kilometers later, I saw one of the same vehicles pulled over to the side again, with this darker, smaller bear standing straight up, not even 20 feet from their car. Up through the sunroof I went, camera in hand again. It was all rather surreal. This bear was a lot closer, and a lot more active, so I took my pictures and left fairly quickly.
On Monday morning I sent the pictures to friends in Kelowna to help identify whether or not the first bear was a young grizzly. Here's the feedback I got from Jason who has seen his fair share of bears:
"Saw the pictures of the black bears you took. Very nice pictures and those are very nice (and big) bears. The brown phase black bear sure has a beautiful coat. They are just starting to rub that winter coat off so it’s fortunate to get pictures of them in their full coat.
Some of the tell tale signs that they are black bears (as opposed to grizzlies) is the pointed face, narrow fairly pointed ears, no shoulder hump and white chest blaze. Not all black bears have the white chest blaze but no grizzly bears do. They can be just as dangerous as grizzlies though so stay close to your car!!"
No comments:
Post a Comment