Grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) fishing for salmon

This grizzly bear was less than ten meters away, with only a meter-high wooden fence between us. She was just passing by to get to the creek where she wanted to fish for salmon and showed no interest whatsoever in the small group of people observing her. She could have jumped over that fence with ease if she had wanted to, but she really never even seemed to considered this. Bears are obviously not the bloodthirsty monsters they are often portrayed to be and are clearly willing to share at least part of their living space with humans peacefully. It would almost seem as if bears are a lot more tolerant towards humans than the other way around.

This would suggest that a peaceful co-excistence may very well be possible, at least if it is up to the bears. A better understanding of bears and the elimination of unreasonable fear -the kind of fear that would predict this bear here to have jumped over the fence and killed all the people- would be a large step towards that co-excistence. Two people who did great work to prove that this would be possible were Charlie Russel and Maureen Enns. Their book "Grizzly Heart" tells their story and that of the bears they lived with.

Articles on this website about the grizzly bears at fish creek:

Bears, cuddly or evil?-- There are two extremes to how people think about grizzly bears. One, amazingly enough, is that they are cuddly animals that you can pet and the other is that they are bloodthirsty monsters that kill for fun. Watching even just one bear at Fish Creek near Hyder in Alaska dispels both extremes... (Read more)

Bear hunting-- Bears are hardly ever killed for sustenance. Those hunting for bears almost always do so to get a nice trophy and for the thrill of killing something that is physically stronger than they are...(Read more)

Image number: 2007_ASP8010AWMC