A giant man-eating bear, the largest grizzly bear ever killed in the world, has been killed in the United States. Brown bear Bears in Alaska

Greetings, dear readers of the site “I and the World”! Today you will learn about the largest bears in the world: their habits and habitat, which specimens are very dangerous and which are quite harmless. But, in any case, it is undesirable to meet with them; the outcome of this meeting is unlikely to be in your favor.

From Russian fairy tales we know about bears as clumsy and stupid animals. Because of their weight, they really seem slow, but this is not so, they can reach such speed that it is difficult to escape from them even on a bicycle. You should get to know them better in order to know what to expect from them if you meet them by chance while traveling around the world, as well as: what they look like, how much they weigh, where they live, etc.

And our rating opens with “Black Bear” or Baribal

His black coat glistens in the sun of the USA and Canada. Less common in northern Mexico. It is in these countries that this animal lives and weighs from 300 to 360 kg.

The largest male is 363 kg. It was killed in Canada - this is the largest Baribal ever caught by man. The animals are quite harmless. They do not attack people or domestic animals and live quietly and peacefully, eating plant foods and fish.

Very rarely, when there is not enough food, Baribal can drag off livestock. With a height of up to two meters, Baribal cubs are born so small that their weight ranges from 200 to 400 grams.

In captivity: in zoos and circuses they can live up to 30 years, but in nature only 10. Now there are about 600,000 individuals.

In 4th place - American Grizzly

Among brown bears, he is the strongest, but not so big. The grizzly bear is very resilient and if there is a fight with another large animal, the animal has an instant grip, which leads to victory. It is considered friendly, but if there is not enough food or feels aggression, the kind nature disappears. The Grizzly's rather strong sense of smell allows it to sense prey at a great distance. It feeds on plant foods, loves fish, and like any predator, does not refuse animal food.

It lives in Alaska and western Canada and reaches 450 kg.

Grizzly in translation means “terrible”, but it does not try to attack people just like that, but only when it is hungry or very angry. In such rare cases, Grizzly was said to be a cannibal. During the rest of the time when it is rich in prey, it is not dangerous.

Brown Siberian bear takes third place

The dimensions of the Russian Siberian reach: weight up to 800 kg, and height up to 2.5 meters. This is a big fish lover, living near the Anadyr, Kolyma and Yenisei rivers. Sometimes found in Chinese provinces.

Although the warm season in these places is short, there is a lot of plant and animal food and allows you to gain a lot of weight.

Siberians are loners and hibernate during the winter. They fish very interestingly: when salmon jump out of the water, the bears try to catch them in the air.

2nd place – one of the brown specimens – Kodiak

They live on the shores of Alaska on Kodiak Island. The brown beast got its name from this island. The largest bear in the world among the brown species. Muscular animal with long paws The Kodiak easily obtains abundant food.

They grow 2.6 meters long and gain up to 1000 kg. The height of an adult predator can be up to 2.8 meters.

There was a time when animals could completely disappear, and therefore they were prohibited from being shot. Now their number is increasing, but so far only 3000.

They do not attack people, and therefore do not pose a danger to tourists. But for the animals themselves, these encounters are quite unpleasant. Animals, frightened by strangers, stop eating normally and gain too little fat before hibernation. And an animal caught for the sake of keeping it in a zoo may simply not survive in captivity.

And finally, first place - Polar Bear

Wikipedia believes that the white bear is the world's largest bear, living in the Arctic and reaching a mass of 1 ton or even more. This predatory animal reaches 3 meters in length - how huge!

This is a real record in weight among all species. Can you imagine such a huge beast, like a white steamer, slowly moving among the snow. There is also fur on the paws, so they move easily on the ice and do not freeze in the most severe frosts.

On the island of Spitsbergen there are even more polar bears than people living there. The long neck with a flat head allows it to stretch out and see far.

It is clear that living among the snow on drifting ice, it feeds on animal food: sea hare, fish, walruses, arctic foxes. Just like brown ones, they live alone and until about 30 years old. Only females hibernate when they are pregnant, in order to gain strength to raise the next generation.

There are 28,000 polar bears all over the world, and about 6,000 in Russia alone. And although hunting them is strictly prohibited, poachers kill up to 200 bears every year.

In the photo you saw the largest bears on earth. They are all listed in the Red Book, but poachers do not think about this, destroying animals for the sake of a beautiful skin. Over the entire history of mankind, so many of these animals have been destroyed that many populations are difficult to increase again.

We say goodbye to you until our next meetings on the pages of our website. If you liked the article, share it with your friends, they will also be interested in it.

More than 98% of all US brown bears live in Alaska, black bears are common, and white bears are common on the Antarctic coast. In total, in Alaska, which has a population of 630 thousand people, there are almost 100 thousand bears:

30 thousand brown bears;
more than 50 thousand black bears4
several thousand polar bears (of which there are 20-25 thousand in the world - that is, in Russia, Canada, Alaska and Greenland).

Record brown bears weigh over 600 kilograms, polar bears - more than 800. Record skins weigh up to 85 kilograms. Larry Rivers, my old friend, an Alaskan outfitter with whom we meet either in Alaska or in St. Petersburg, said that when the skin is too heavy to lift, he drags it to a stream or river and floats it to a place where his airplane can land. I was always amazed that such “mammoths” grow from half-kilogram, hairless, blind babies born in severe frosts in a den. And bears live up to 30 years.

In the old days, there were 100,000 grizzly bears south of the Canadian border. Nowadays there are barely 2 thousand, of which about 600 live in Yellowstone National Park. There are now approximately 30 thousand grizzly bears in Canada.

The bear is a fascinating beast. Dimensions appearance, behavior and relationships with relatives, dramatic stories of clashes with man formed his undisputed primacy in the hierarchy interesting to people wild animals of these latitudes. And the opportunity to see a bear in its habitat has ceased to be a monopoly of professional naturalists and hunters - anyone can go to visit bears and can pay a lot of money for the opportunity to see the animal in its bearish corners. In Russia, alas, such adventures are practically unavailable, although in Kamchatka it is quite possible to organize and put on stream such tours.

Travel to Alaska - Alaska Bears

The growing popularity of bear watching has turned this exotic activity into a full-fledged business, bringing increasingly significant income to the Alaskan economy. The Bear Watching Association and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimate that tourists spend about $50 million annually on bear watching in Alaska. In the United States and Canada along the coasts of Alaska, British Columbia, and northern Minnesota, the number of bear sightings and their economic impact (about $100 million annually) has outpaced the number and economic impact of hunters.

Travel to Alaska - Alaska Bears

Watching bears accompanied by experienced guides is an exciting and at the same time safe spectacle. Over the past few decades, the only observers who have fallen victim to bears have been the famous biologist Tim Treadwell and his girlfriend, who violated every conceivable rule of being in the bear kingdom (more on this dramatic story in the second part of my story).

Larry Rivers explains the difference between a brown bear and a grizzly bear:

Both are North American brown bears. The distinction is purely arbitrary: those bears that live within 75 miles of the coast are considered brown, and they are larger, since salmon occupy a significant place in their diet. Those that live beyond these 75 miles from the coast are considered grizzlies. Their diet is poorer, winters are harsher, so they are somewhat smaller in size than brown ones that have eaten salmon. At the same time, grizzlies are generally more vicious - you can fish 10-15 meters from a brown salmon catching salmon, but in Alaska it is prohibited to approach a grizzly closer than 300 meters.

Black bears are not only smaller, but also much more peaceful than brown bears. A brown one can pick up and eat a black one, so black ones are only found where there are trees that can be climbed - an adult brown one, as a rule, will not climb a tree. In Alaska and western Canada, grizzlies and browns were 100 times more likely to cause serious injury and death than black bears. A black bear with two adorable cubs on a salmon river let me within 10 meters. The Americans, unlike me, continued to fish, because for them the black bear is a completely common species.

Browns of the southern coast of Alaska - the islands of Baranov, Chichagov, Admiralteysky, Kodiak - are the largest, most enviable trophies, but the weather there is God forbid. Larry says good weather there is when it rains vertically...

How to behave when meeting a bear

While in the bear kingdom, always be on guard.
Stay away from “bear corners” and other dense places where you are likely to encounter clubfooted animals - unless, of course, it is part of your plans.
Avoid situations in which unexpected nose-to-nose meetings are possible.
Be in a group - if you are 5-6 people sticking together, you are safe.
Don't get into trouble, keep your distance.
Be careful not to smell the food, feed the bears, or try to touch them.

In all the taiga places visited by tourists in Alaska, there is a warning poster: if you walk through the forest, talk loudly, keep your dog on a leash, and do not let children away from you. Bears feel like masters in the Alaskan forest - there are no mushroom pickers or berry pickers, and not a soul in the vast expanses. Bears wander into Alaskan villages and towns - freely scattered houses are surrounded by greenery, fences are often missing, and Chris Rhodes, the owner of the amazing Russian River Lodge, where my son and I stayed, cheerfully complained: a damn bear climbed onto the property and chewed on an expensive smokehouse - It smelled indescribably like fish...

A bear's reactions are impulsive and impossible to predict. As one of the seasoned Alaskan game wardens, Charlie Madsen, said, “bears are like women: they never act predictably.”

My bravado when I found myself alone, unarmed, fifty meters from a couple of grizzly bears in Denali National Park (central Alaska) was immediately condemned by Larry. “Do you know how many seconds it takes him to cover this distance? - Larry asks and answers: “Three.”

Then I checked - yes, 15 meters per second - the usual reported time of these furry sprinters. As Alaskan game warden Clark Engle says, 25 meters from a bear you only have one shot left - if you miss, you're dead.

Travel to Alaska - Alaska Bears

Several hundred thousand white, brown and black bears living in the north of the American continent kill 2-3 people per year; Over the past century, 350 people have become their victims. In the United States, grizzlies killed two people in 2 years (but during the same time, 197 people died from lightning strikes).

A bear attack can be provoked by the fact that a person accidentally finds himself close to cubs or a den, suddenly finds himself close to an animal that has not sensed him, and also if the bear is wounded or starving. It is dangerous to be close to a bear couple during the mating season - the brown one will not understand what your intentions are when you are near his girlfriend. But most attacks are carried out by mother bears with cubs, and most often they end when the cubs are at a safe distance or the victim stops moving. According to a study by S. Herrero on clashes between humans and bears in US national parks, almost 80% of all clubfoot attacks on humans occur on female bears with cubs.

Most bear attacks last no more than 30 seconds - but don't look down on those seconds... The stupidest thing is to try to run if a bear attacks. A slow retreat, when the backer also manages to calmly talk to the bear, can sometimes save a life. But if a hungry bear attacks, the chances of survival are minimal.

As a guest of the bear kingdom, you need to constantly listen to the forest. Not only a bear's roar, but also whining is a sign of danger: it could be a bear cub, its whining is very similar to the sounds that a human child makes. Having heard such a sound, look for a tree nearby that you can climb about four meters: brown bears, unlike bear cubs, do not climb trees (however, if the branches are low, a clubfoot will climb a tree, even if it seems like a grizzly to him) not allowed). The black ones climb, sometimes saving themselves from the brown ones. One problem - when you need it, before the right tree, perhaps he won’t make it...

Travel to Alaska - Alaska Bears

Bears avoid humans. They avoid encounters, do not specifically pursue people, and are not drawn into cannibalism like lions or tigers. But, having killed a person, a bear can eat him without leaving a trace.

The official safety distance between a bear and a national park visitor, strictly enforced by rangers, is 300 yards (0.9 meters) in Denali National Park (Alaska), 100 yards in Yellowstone and 50 yards in Katmai. It all comes down to two key factors: the bear's diet and its perception of humans. The main concern of the clubfoot - to gain the proper weight and store fat for the winter - is easier to solve on the coast, and this softens the temperament of the bears living there (and the sea-ocean warms the climate, and in the cold winter a grizzly bear spends more calories on heating its flesh than a brown bear coast). Salmon, which go to spawn in countless herds, so generously supplement the diet of the bear in Katmai that it makes him incomparably more complacent than the grizzly bear in Denali, where salmon herds almost never reach and where the winters are much harsher. In addition, habit is important: if the bear becomes accustomed to visits from people who do not chase or tease him, the clubfoot perceives this type of fauna as something harmless and useless.

Travel to Alaska - Alaska Bears

In Katmai, guides have a tried-and-true trick: a group of tourists are brought along the path of a grazing bear, the bear sees people and determines the distance that is acceptable to it, at which it is ready to approach: it can be 20 or 10 meters. The guides told stories, and I myself have repeatedly seen how mother bears lay down to sleep 10-15 meters from a group of tourists, rightly believing that such a distance is absolutely safe.

Curious cubs try to come closer - and this can be dangerous, because the bear may consider that her cubs are in danger and attack with lightning speed. At the same time, she is in constant fear that the males might attack her cubs (which happens quite often), so she calmly leaves the cubs near people and fishes within sight, rightly believing that this way the cubs are safer. Male bears, for whom a comfortable distance from people can be 100 or 200 meters, will leave the cubs alone on this safety island...

The bear is not at all looking for trouble; he does not need serious skirmishes and wounds in a potential fight. Therefore, sometimes a decisive posture and voice of a person, a few energetic steps towards him, are enough for the bear to take off running. But this must be based on a clear understanding of the condition of the bear and experience in handling them, which only comes with years of field communication.

The greater the distance from which the bear saw, smelled or heard a person, the more time and chances the bear has to determine what distance he is willing to allow, and the more likely he is to react more calmly to human presence. On the contrary, a sudden nose-to-nose collision can provoke the bear to fight back. In national parks, bears are not shot, they are not afraid of a man with a gun, they have no fear of bipeds, and they can show who is boss in the forest.

It has also been noticed that the bear becomes bolder at night, so at night you need to keep your eyes open not with your ears, but with both. Last spring, I woke up in a wood grouse current from a roar: Mikhailo Potapych was passing a hundred meters from where I spent the night and expressed his displeasure with my presence...

Travel to Alaska - Alaska Bears

Bear tongue

Bears are known for their threatening lunges, which are often just acts of scaring away rather than attacking. But at the same time, you can never say whether the bear is intimidating, that is, bluffing, or whether the attack is inevitable.

“There is no doubt,” writes Larry Kaniut, author of Alaska Bear Tales (I’m reading the 26th edition of it!), “many bears went to bear heaven because someone mistook a bear’s attempt to attack as a simple attack.” scare away. But a lot of people got into trouble with the bear because they thought the bear was bluffing.”

The signs of a bear's “body language” are the same. By observing bears in their relationships, including in the preludes of fights, it is possible to determine the behavior of bears relative to humans, including the prelude of aggression and attack. The most important nuance is to understand the difference between intimidation and real intent to attack.

Bluffing is the most important tool for resolving a conflict, when the intention to solve a problem does not apply to everything possible consequences, including a fight to the death. Training - silly fights, games, imitation of adult relationships - begins in childhood, and the desperate fuss continues until real adulthood; 2-3-year-old bumpkins can playfully play with each other regularly and with pleasure... Bear cubs up to two years old willingly fuss not only with each other, but also with their mother, who, after the children reach the age of two or three, drives them away and begins to play with their dad future brothers and sisters...

A lowered head, flattened ears, a straight gaze - if an approaching bear has such an appearance, trouble is seconds away. A bear grazing, approaching in zigzags, and not looking directly at you (you are in the focus of its peripheral vision), as a rule, is simply curious. He will forgive you the same thing - if you do not go straight at him, but in a zigzag, without haste, with pauses. Steve Stringham, in order to convince the bear that he is not moving in his direction at all, pretends to be feasting on berries or grass - the bear usually trusts such a “legend” and lets him get closer.

When enthusiastically following a bear, you should not forget about its relatives, who may appear on your way unnoticed.

Travel to Alaska - Alaska Bears

If a bear shows interest in you, you need to understand the nature of this interest. Is he curious about an unusual object, does he want to play with you, is he concerned about your approach to cubs or prey, are you occupying his favorite salmon fishing spot, does he want to profit from something from your belongings, or much worse - is he preparing to attack?
In general, the worst ones are teenage bear cubs from two to four years old. They are curious, and sometimes fearlessly approach people, trying to steal something from a tent camp or destroy a hut, take away a fisherman’s catch, and the like.

Bear and man

The stories of human contacts with wild bears are sometimes simply amazing. Here is the incredible odyssey of the “bear daddy” Valentin Sergeevich Pazhetnov, who returned more than fifty orphaned bear cubs to the forest, and the obsession of naturalist photographer Sergei Gorshkov, who put his life on the line dozens of times for the sake of an incredible shot.

Biologist Lynn Rogers had so accustomed black bears to his regular presence that the mother bear allowed him not only to get close, but also to pick up the cubs. The photographs of these scenes are amazing. The experience of Charlie Vandergow, a teacher from Anchorage, is also surprising - for twenty years he trained bears, including brown ones, to visit him in a hut in the Alaskan taiga. The treat was dry dog food, and up to a couple of dozen club-footed dogs dropped by to visit him every day. The delicacy of the relationship reached incredible heights - even the brown bears allowed themselves to be touched and stroked, which is unique for a wild bear. Moreover, this trust extended to the guests of the owner of the hut. He was scratched and bitten by bears several times over the years, but nothing more serious happened.

But the martyrology of those who crossed the invisible line of what is permissible testifies: the bear is unpredictable, and no experience of communicating with it can guarantee that the next meeting will not be fatal.

Japanese photographer Michio Hoshino was killed by a bear in Kamchatka in 1996.

Travel to Alaska - Alaska Bears

Young biologist Timothy Treadwell spent 13 seasons with Alaskan bears. His fraternization with bears became increasingly risky. First, he refused pepper spray, which is simply necessary in the bear kingdom, then he refused the electric fence around the tent (live wire powered by solar battery), even from a false fire. He considered the clubfooted people to be friends and did not want to cause them trouble. Was deep autumn when bears become especially aggressive; Tim was already breaking up camp, realizing that it was high time to return. He was packing his things in the tent and came out to the noise - a bear was rummaging through already folded things. Tim screamed at the bear - and made the last mistake of his life. Out of surprise, the bear took his cry as an attack and tore first Tim, and then his bride Emmy. All the sounds of the terrible scene were recorded on a video camera that was accidentally turned off...

Travel to Alaska - Alaska Bears

“A photographer who approaches a bear takes a risk every time. But for some reason, awareness of this risk comes later: the further you are from the bear, the more terrible it is,” wrote biologist Vitaly Nikolaenko, who spent more than thirty seasons in Kamchatka. “I haven’t harmed a single bear. I never took a sin to my soul, pointing the barrel of a gun towards those whom Roerich called the fathers of humanity,” wrote V. Nikolaenko. The bear killed him in the same 2003, literally a month after the death of T. Treadwell. In a word, with M.I. The Toptygins are not joking. But you are welcome to be friends at a respectful distance...

Alexey Shaskolsky
Photo by Maxim and Alexey Shaskolsky

" - this is what Mikhail Kretschmar calls the brown bear in his book of the same name. There are hundreds of publications dedicated to this king of the northern forest. We will not repeat ourselves, but will only recommend that the potential hunter become as familiar as possible with the habits and habits of the brown bear. This knowledge will help to obtain maximum satisfaction from the upcoming hunt.

Let us pay attention only to the difference in the terms “Grizzly” and “Brown” bear. Scientists classify the grizzly bear and the brown bear as the same species." Ursus arctos"We generally consider the bear that lives on the coast and feeds on salmon to be a “Brown” bear. Brown bear reaches its largest size and is found, among other places, on the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island. "Grizzly" is found in inland areas where free access to salmon is limited, and accordingly reaches smaller sizes than its coastal relative. However, a grizzly bear that is closer to the coast and has easy access to salmon can easily reach 9+ feet in size. Brown bear hunting tends to be more expensive due to more complex logistics in the coastal areas of the Alaska Peninsula.

Why do people hunt bears?

It is unlikely that the main purpose of hunting a brown bear is the desire to taste a piece of fibrous, overcooked bear meat. The times when the Aleuts hunted brown bears for survival are long gone. Some hunters go for a trophy. Undoubtedly, a ten-foot bear will decorate the collection of any hunting lodge. But, in my opinion, most hunters come for adrenaline. Bear hunting is an unpredictable activity. There is some possibility that the hunt will not go entirely according to plan, and you will have to experience the sensations that a person experienced when going after a bear with a spear. The presence of firearms certainly calms us down a little, although experts will agree that this calmness is rather false. In Alaska they say that "A dead bear is the most dangerous." There have been cases when a bear, already technically dead, caused great trouble to its pursuers. But the possibility of an unpredictable turn of events is exactly what attracts a person to a duel with the king of the northern forest. Man was once the undisputed conqueror of the wild. Those days are gone. Man weakened, laid down his arms, and quickly lost the skills that he had acquired over thousands of years, and which allowed him to take a leading role among other inhabitants of the planet. Now he needs more skills in using Apple products. But somewhere inside, suddenly an irresistible desire to fight will flare up. The desire to make sure that you still haven’t lost what you got from your shaggy ancestor. And you open a Google page and type in "Brown Bear Hunting in Alaska."

Where do we hunt

We hunt grizzly bear in sections* GMU 19, GMU 16B, and brown bear in section GMU 9. The first two sections cover the southern part of the Alaska Range, covering an area exceeding 40,000 square miles, and GMU 9 is located on the famous Alaska Peninsula. GMU 19 runs east of the Kuskokwin River valley and reaches the Alaska Range and Revelation Mountains, while GMU 16B extends from the eastern edges of the Alaska Range to the Denali Mountains and south to Cook Inlet. Both mountain regions have large numbers of grizzly bears, which primarily feed on salmon, and while they are smaller in size than the brown bears of Kodiak Island or the Alaska Peninsula, they average 9+ feet in size.

The famous Alaska Peninsula is home to the largest brown bear, second in size only to the giant bears of Kodiak Island. If your hunt is for a potential trophy worthy of an entry in Boone & Crockett's book, we encourage you to book a hunt on the Alaska Peninsula. Hunting for brown bear on the Alaska Peninsula, for citizens of foreign countries, is permitted only in the fall in odd-numbered years and in the spring in even-numbered years. For example, the season was opened in the fall of 2013 and spring of 2014. Accordingly, there will be no open season in the fall of 2014 and spring of 2015.

Spring or Autumn hunting

When choosing a spring or autumn bear hunt, you should consider the likelihood of catch and the quality of the pelt.

In spring there is more daylight. In the spring, the bear is often in constant motion and is easier to spot. Also in spring there is less vegetation and no foliage (green foliage), which helps to look out for bears on the coast. Spring hide can be of excellent quality if it is not rubbed. Up to 50% of spring bears are skinned. A bear can skin in a den when the skin freezes to icy surfaces and the bear has to tear it off. Heavily skinned bears have to be allowed through. The spring bear is often skinned on its back and hindquarters. IN The autumn skin is thick and heavy, with longer hair, but more faded, does not shine and does not play like the autumn skin.

Autumn days are shorter. Autumn hunting on the coast is made more difficult by poor visibility due to foliage and tall grass, and by the fact that it is more difficult to detect a bear from below if it sits on berries and moves little. Autumn hunting in the mountains is carried out on salmon rivers and on blueberry slopes. In the mountains, we look for an autumn bear from above, and the probability increases significantly. In autumn, much fewer skinned bears are found, up to 9%, and a heavily skinned bear is very rare. There is a small chance that the bear rubbed against a tree, but from our experience, a spring bear is skinned much more often. The autumn skin is not as heavy as the spring one, but it is richer and benefits from salmon oils, which are rich in bear food, and due to the fact that there is less sun in autumn.

Spring hunting in the mountains is carried out on snowshoes in difficult-to-reach areas and requires great physical exertion.

Average bear weight 900 lb / 400 kg

How we hunt

Depending on the season, bear hunting lasts 8-10 days.

We hunt lightly, from temporary tent camps (spike camps). This gives us the opportunity for easy redeployment. If necessary, the camp is placed on the mighty shoulders and moved to a new place.

It is also possible to hunt grizzly bears from the base camp in GMU16.

Hunting is carried out from the approach, stealth. After setting up camp, the guide and assistant begin to look out for the bear. Bear hunting requires enormous patience and endurance. Sometimes the bear does not come out for several days, and an irresistible desire arises to move to another place, walk along the coast or along a river bed. Look over that hill over there. Maybe there, behind the hill, there is a huge bear waiting for you. All you have to do is get closer and it’s done! In reality, such walks will only spread your scent throughout the neighborhood and alert everyone to your presence. Need but overcome the temptation to take a walk, and continue to carefully peer into the bushes, into the stones, into the tree trunk. At one point, a bizarre tree trunk will turn its head, and you will have to work hard to contain your emotions.

The hunter, as a rule, takes an active part in looking out for the animal, and conducts a large number of time looking through binoculars. We recommend bringing the best optics you can afford. Good optics allow you to look longer and see more.

After spotting a bear, the guide brings the hunter within shooting distance. Often you have to cross mountain rivers or swamps. We recommend waist-length Wading Pants (Waders) and boots to go with the waders. Very often, especially in the spring, a bear is constantly on the move, and it is not easy to catch up with it, especially if you have to change your shoes to cross rivers. Sometimes it is useful to run a kilometer or two in order to quickly reduce the distance. The shot is usually fired from a distance of 100-300 meters, from a sitting position. The bear has a habit of not dying with the first shot, and often you have to finish it off with the entire clip (or even the second clip). The skills of targeted rapid shooting from a sitting position will be very useful. The killing spots are in the region, lungs and heart. If the bear runs towards you after the first shot, you will have a few seconds to try to stop it. In this case, you need to shoot at the shoulders, trying to break the bones and disable the mechanics. The last shot from two meters to the head.

We bring the archers to a distance of 20-30 meters, making sure in advance that we have spare pants. The guide insures an archer with a firearm.

Weapon

Weapons must be checked and shot. There is no need to bring new, shiny only what you bought. The old-fashioned, reliable one will be much more useful. Guns are always a subject of controversy and debate. We prefer that the brown bear hunter shoot at least a .338 Win Mag with a high quality bullet weighing at least 250 grain. 375 H&H is very popular. Our Master Guide Tony Dingess prefers the 458 Lott. Undoubtedly, you must be fluent in your chosen weapon, and if recoil and barrel jump prevent you from hitting the target, then it is better to choose the caliber with which you feel most comfortable. 300 Win Mag is the minimum worth considering.

We have heard many stories about how many bears have been taken since 30-06, and we are not impressed. Nobody wants to look for a wounded bear in the bushes because someone decided to prove something they read somewhere. We are more impressed by stories about hunters who bring .50 BMG to the camp, and if you have the opportunity, we prefer that you come with it.

When hunting with a bow, the minimum peak force allowed by law is 50 lbs. When hunting brown bear/grizzly bears, we prefer your bow to be in the 75-90 lbs range. The arrow must be at least 20 inches long, with a tip. The total weight of the arrow must be at least 300 grains (1 grain = 64.79 milligrams). The tip can be with solid or replaceable blades. Hunting with drop-blade tips is prohibited.

Muskets and pistols are discussed separately.

Trophy Measurement

The skin is measured at flat surface. The skin is laid out fur side down and leveled. We measure from the edge of the nose to the edge of the tail, we get the first measurement. We measure from claws to claws between the front paws, we get the second measurement. Add the two measurements and divide in half. We get the average size of the skin. The average size of the hide is 8-9 feet. 10+ is considered lucky, 11+ rare.

For the Boone & Crocket record book, the skull is measured and a special form is filled out.

Every year in the news, and more often on the Internet, there are reports of encounters with giant bears in different parts Sveta. Most often, people perceive this as just another duck, although many naturalists and hunters are confident that in remote, remote places giant bears exist and thrive well - direct descendants of animals that went extinct thousands of years ago.

Many trophy hunters dream of catching the biggest bear and getting into the record books. On the other hand, this powerful and very intelligent beast, with its size and strength, seems to challenge humans. Suffice it to recall the many years of hunting for a giant seasoned brown bear, so vividly described in William Faulkner’s story “The Bear.” By the way, on our website you can watch a magnificent film based on this book, which did not leave any hunter indifferent. Just go.

Look for the Chukchi shark, which was either a miraculously preserved ancient cave bear, or some kind of an independent species, Kuvaev proposed in the vicinity of Lake Elgygytgyn, one of the most hard to reach places in the region. So far, not a single bear resembling a shark has been found there. And no bear tracks of abnormal size were observed.

Giant with short legs

A new surge of interest in giant bears occurred after the publication in the press of materials about Kamchatka hunter Rodion Sivolobov, who claimed that in certain parts of the island there was an unusual bear, which the Koryaks called “irkuyem.” This animal is not only gigantic in size, but also differs in physique from other bears. According to Sivolobov, he first learned about the existence of the mysterious Irkuyem from the old Koryak I. Elelkiv, a resident of the village of Khvilino. He warned Sivolobov against hunting a huge bear with short hind legs - irkuyem.

Arctopus was very large

There is an opinion that in the mid-70s a huge specimen was shot, and its paws, almost half a meter long, and its skull were sent to the capital. But they didn’t make it there - they mysteriously disappeared from the train somewhere in the Urals region.

The real bear kingdom is as it is; man is not the master here, but a guest. Katmai National Park is the gem and highlight of the entire trip. It was worth flying halfway around the world just for him alone. The place is unique, you can count them on your fingers on the whole planet.

Throughout the vast territory of the park, 16 thousand kilometers long, we will be interested in the small Brooks Camp, located at the mouth of the Brooks River, on the shores of Lake Naknek. The main months for bear sightings at Brooks Camp are July and September. It is at this time that hordes of salmon move up the river. Bears know this very well and are already waiting for prey.

At Brooks Camp you can live in a four-bed wooden house (purchased entirely), or you can put up a tent in a special area fenced with an electric fence (much cheaper than a house). At the same time, you need to understand that despite the fact that the house costs the same as a good hotel in Manhattan, the conditions there are quite spartan - beds in two tiers, shower, toilet and that’s it.

Accommodation and flights are sold as one package. You can come for one day without an overnight stay, but there’s not much point in that. I chose the intermediate option of two nights. The place is very popular, it is recommended to make a reservation in advance (I booked my trip almost a year in advance).

1. We got to the national park in two stages. First we flew to the city of King Salmon (500 kilometers from Anchorage). The plane, although small, looked civilized - there was one flight attendant and they gave us nuts.

2. A bus met us at King Salmon and took us to the float plane parking lot. Passengers and luggage were weighed and distributed among the planes. We flew to the Brooks base, the time in the air was about forty minutes.

3. First of all, we were taken to an anti-bear briefing, which consisted of watching a film and a lecture by a ranger.

4. In total, about two thousand grizzly bears live in the park, while about 70 individuals constantly live in the area of our camp. The grizzly bear is a subspecies of brown bear that lives primarily in Alaska and Canada.

5. Performance characteristics of a bear: height 2.2-2.8 meters, weight up to 500 kilograms, claws up to 15 centimeters, speed up to 60 km/h, swims well. The ultimate killing machine.

6. The good news is that grizzly bears eat mainly berries and fish. In a calm state, the bear does not attack people. However, you should not stand between the cubs and their mother, for example. Bears can also be attracted by the smell of human food, so food storage and waste disposal must be handled very responsibly.

7. In winter, grizzlies sleep peacefully in dens, so in the fall they have one goal - to eat to their fill. An adult bear eats up to 20 salmon per day. Due to the abundance of fish in the river, bears do not care about people, they are busy fishing.

8. To make it easier to observe bears, two observation platforms have been built on the river. Lower platform:

9. A long bridge separates the observation decks from the camp. The bridge is guarded by rangers who make sure that people and bears do not cross paths. On the bridge, “bear jams” or “bear jams” appear every now and then, for example, when some bear goes to sleep near the bridge or on the path. You can’t drive him away; everyone must wait until the bear leaves on his own. It is quite a common situation when the bridge is closed for half an hour or more. It’s also a shame when you reach almost the middle of the bridge, and the ranger shouts at you that you need to turn around. They say there were situations when people were late for their plane after getting stuck in a “bear traffic jam.”

Rangers for the most part They are engaged in the work of traffic controllers and breeders, making sure that the paths of bears and people do not cross. Meanwhile, bears walk along absolutely all the same paths as tourists.

People got stuck on a bridge while a bear was swimming under the bridge:

10. The lower observation deck is located right next to the bridge. In order to get to the second observation deck at the waterfalls, you need to walk about fifteen minutes through the forest (two kilometers). The caveat is that rangers only patrol the camp, the bridge and the lower platform, and even then only during daylight hours. When you walk through the forest or in the evening, you realize that there is no one around, only bears.

11. Once a bear ran literally 10 meters from us, but we pretended not to notice each other. The basic rule is not to panic, not to wave your arms, not to cross the path of the bear, but simply slowly retreat from the road.

12. As soon as we completed the instructions and settled into the house, I immediately rushed to the photo hunt. Even the rather heavy rain didn't stop me. I almost paid for my carelessness - for reasons unknown to me, rain flooded my camera, as a result of which, when turned on, it did not allow me to set any settings, but immediately began to shoot in bursts. To say that I was in a panic would be an understatement. I ran across the ceiling, asking the heavens why I was such an idiot and didn’t take a spare carcass.

Deja vu was scary - my camera once broke in Ecuador (this horror story). I tried to manually adjust the focus with the device turned off, and then let it shoot in bursts. The photo below is practically the only one that turned out with this approach. Fortunately, the photographic gods had mercy on me - within a few hours the camera dried out and subsequently worked without any complaints.

13. Melancholy-romantic bear on a spit:

14. In this camp I observed the highest concentration of photographers per square meter. The most popular lens, in my opinion, was the Canon 100-400 (almost all the photos in this post were taken with the same one). At the same time, there were a lot of people with 600 mm primes and the like. Photographers could hang around the site all day, waiting for the right shot.

15. From the lower platform there is a view of the lake, where bears are actively swimming, tracking down fish. Some drag their prey ashore, while others eat it right on the spot:

18. In addition to the ubiquitous seagulls, there are other birds in the park. I caught a shy magpie:

19. And an equally timid partridge:

20. The photos below were taken from the observation deck at the waterfalls. Here you can see the bears much closer. In July, you can see a dozen bears at the waterfall at the same time, some of which stand right in the rapids and wait for the fish to fly right into their mouths. But in September, salmon no longer jump into the waterfall, so the bears hang out mainly near the lower platform.

21. Looks out for the victim.

22. Sometimes it is not clear how bears manage to find fish in stormy water.

31. The gift shop sells T-shirts that say Katmai is the largest sushi bar in Alaska.

32. It only takes a bear a few minutes to cut one fish, and then he returns to hunting.

33. The camp area is quite small - a dozen and a half log cabins, an office, a fish storage facility, a dining room, and a few other buildings. There is no mobile phone service on site, but you can get a satellite phone in the office. Breakfast, lunch and dinner - buffet for a fee. The food is good, but nothing more. The expected abundance of salmon was not on the table. But a great find is the circular fireplace, which is so nice to warm up next to after hours of watching bears.

34. A local squirrel once scared us a lot when we were walking through the forest to a waterfall. She'll jump out of the bushes, and out of fright, I mistook her for a bear.

35. All that's left of the elk are the horns and legs:

37. Office house:

38. Bears are not afraid to roam freely right around the camp. This bear is grazing on the lawn right under the dining room windows.

40. Loch Ness Bear:

41. The second main activity in the camp, besides watching bears (this activity even has a name - “bear watching”), is fishing. Fishermen usually stand in the same places as bears. Moreover, they directly compete with bears for fish - people have nerves of iron. There is a special building on the territory for storing fish, where bears cannot reach.

42. Bears do not attack seagulls; they are probably not dexterous enough for this.

43. It’s not rain, it’s a bear that has climbed out onto a rock and is shaking itself off. Sometimes they looked strikingly like dogs.

44. Pay attention to the manicure:

45. Trying to catch a fish...

46. ...this time it was unsuccessful.

50. Seagulls are bears’ eternal fishing companions. They know that they will definitely get the offal from the fish that the bear has not eaten. But I saw a seagull independently attack a salmon in the water.

55. We met a bear sleeping peacefully under a tree. And it’s not clear what to do in such a situation - make a louder noise so that he wakes up and leaves, or, on the contrary, sneak away without attracting much attention to himself.

59. A young bear is blocking the passage to the bridge. Unfortunately, we did not see the cubs; by September they had all grown up. The rangers recognize many of the bears by sight, although they say that many of the bears have become so overfed since the summer that they don’t look like themselves. This one is simply called Little Bear:

61. Smiling Bear:

62. An alternative pastime could be to go to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes (there used to be active volcanic fumes there). We decided not to fuss and focused on the bears.

63. When I got tired of photographing bears, I switched to another big game - tourists.

64. All good things come to an end, so two days and two nights flew by in Katmai. We got back the other way, through the airfield to the Kulik lodge.

65. Our famous bridge and the pen in which the bears splash remain under our wing:

66. For the first time I saw a rainbow all over the sky in literally this word.

68. The float splashed down at the Kulik lodge (another recreation center in the reserve). We boarded a minibus and drove to the airstrip. We drove along a steep dirt road, literally through impassable bushes.

69. What was happening was very reminiscent of films about drug dealers - a dusty minibus, a dirt runway, a small propeller plane. Yes, I haven’t flown anything like this before. But the acceleration on the dirt road was surprisingly smooth, and we took off. This is still not a float - the plane was flying much higher than the clouds.

70. While we were shaking in the air, I thought to myself that many adventure films and games began with the fact that such a stunted airplane crashes on some tropical island, with dinosaurs, for example.

71. Shortly after takeoff, the pilot turned on automatic control and began to hamster the orange, washing it down with tea from a thermos (I hope it was tea).

72. It’s a strange feeling when you watch the steering wheel turn on its own, and the pilot is busy with an orange.

73. On the approach to Anchorage, I saw the runways of the international airport and thought that we would land on a normal runway. But no, near the airport there was a dirt road that was already familiar to us, where we landed. Next to the strip there was a parking lot for private small planes, very impressive in size. Still, small private aviation in the States is very developed.