Grizzlies and Salmon

I was lucky enough to spend another couple of days up at Phillips Arm and the Grizzlies were all around us. Helping Greg to collect most of the remaining eggs and milt from the broodstock turned into a sideshow compared to the treat of watching so many bears wandering through the area. I really need to get a better camera!
It is truly amazing how quiet such a large animal can be while trucking around the forest.
The bear in the water was an early morning visitor with his/her sibling watching from a distance as seen in the next picture. These 2 year olds will probably go their separate ways next year but they are still very much a team now.
Reports from Knight Inlet (further north) are that the bears are going hungry with poor salmon returns but the Grizzly population here seems to be doing well for themselves. We did see one big mother bear with cub walking upstream as we first headed into the site.
The bottom picture is another solitary bear wandering downstream on the Phillips River looking for a meal. The river is quite large so the bears forage more for carcasses than actually try to fish in the lower system.