(soft cello music)
(birds squawking)
(soft piano music)
- [Voiceover] The bears, this is their home.
The fish, this is their home.
This is their land.
This is their river.
This is their way of life.
This is truly Alaska.
(upbeat string music)
- Typically in the summer there's more field work.
Alaska has long, long summer days,
so we have a lot of time
and I need to take advantage of it to collect data.
We're in Chinitna Bay.
We're looking out at some mudflats.
It's a habitat they use to access clams.
It's a rich resource of mussels;
razor clams that bears use.
Handful of bears, sometimes more,
are out digging clams, getting protein
that build, lean mass,
kind of gets their health back early in the season.
Up here we have a beach ridge and then
on the other side of that we have salt marsh vegetation.
And that's sedges, some other plants that bears use.
It's one of the first areas that greens up
and is food they can access that's critical
to that early season conditioning of their body
after the long denning period.
(camera shutters clicking rapidly)
(soft peaceful music)
(Airplane engine humming)
We're pretty fortunate to have these amazing
salt marsh systems where bears become pretty visible
and so we're able to do aerial flights
that give us population data.
Pretty common, on our coast, to fly a survey
during this time of the year and see over 200 bears.
That's a pretty amazing density.
You know, when you're out in these areas,
we just need to be very aware of bear behavior.
So, are they paying a lot of attention to us?
Are they moving away from us?
Do they appear to be uncomfortable?
We could use those cues to assess how they're feeling
and that can be a good way of determining
when we're inside their comfortable, personal space.
But people behave in a predictable way
and it definitely minimizes their stress level.
Our behaviors can influence their ability
to make a living.
(wind and surf on the beach)
(camera shutter clicks)
- We're getting a reflection underneath the bear.
This guy's giving us a good show.
(woman laughs)
You wanna be aware of the bears' activity
and whether the bears are paying attention to you.
You wanna be quiet and stay together as a group
and you don't wanna get so close
that you're affecting their behavior.
You definitely don't wanna walk toward them.
That's not something you ever do.
Some people carry backpacks.
Some people carry a pack that they set beside them.
You don't want to leave any gear around
without you being at it and you don't sit out here
and have lunch in front of them.
The bears are very curious and they'll come
and check it out.
It's not for the photo itself
or what you do with the photo.
To me, it's more that it gets me out here.
(soft relaxing music)
- (laughs) Some of this is arrowgrass
tastes a little bit like cilantro.
It's kind of salty.
And if you like cilantro, it's not bad.
A salt marsh is a meadow system that is tidally influenced.
So tides some in, saturate the soils
and you have a unique suite of species that grows here.
Here's some of this goose tongue and this is really robust.
But you can see where the bears have been grazing it.
These are higher in nutrients than this grass here,
beach rye, which they haven't touched.
So, the bears are preferentially grazing
in some areas and not others.
We are expected to respect the bears' space.
We don't want our behavior driving bears out of areas
where they're feeding.
As the season progresses,
the salmon come in and they get a really great source
of protein through the salmon.
- [Voiceover] The bears fish because they hibernate,
so they have to put on enough poundage
to make it through the wintertime.
When the salmon are running,
it's like no other experience you're gonna have.
- [Voiceover] Collectively, we've been fishing this stream
(laughs) for over a hundred years already.
- Never let a bear get your fish
because then they associate their meal (snickers),
you know, with a human or somebody fishing.
- If you catch one of the bears close enough
that he picks up on it,
he generally is gonna start running to that fish.
In which case, what you want to do is
snap that fish off as quickly as you can
and then everybody is happy.
- Everything changes out here pretty quick.
Particularly the weather.
The place we're standing right now,
which is the confluence of Silver Salmon Creek
and Sergeant's Creek, we were standing here at one point
and we counted either 13 or 14 bears.
Fish boxes are bear-proof.
They may beat the box around
but they're not gonna get the fish out of it.
- My experience over 24 years is that
you rely on common sense.
Out here, your head is constantly on a swivel.
You need to know what's going on in your surroundings,
and if you see a bear coming down the stream,
you stop fishing and you back off the stream
and let the bear pass.
(raindrops)
It's enjoyable to watch the bears
as much as it is to fish.
(waves crash on shore)
(acoustic guitar music)
(bear grunts)
- I was just out here clamming with another person
and three one-year-old cubs
was also out here and I watched her nurse
about 150 yards away.
- And that is just really cool to see them and just see
how they went about their day
and where they clammed.
(bird chirps)
("Instr." by Jose Gonzalez)
- Lake Clark National Park feels like it's wild.
Being next to the ocean and this magnificent landscape
and then with a bear just walking right in front of you,
it's quite a transformative experience.
- It's so beautiful up here.
It's peaceful.
Don't you see it?
Don't you feel that peace here?
I've been very, very fortunate to be able to come up here
and come to love it.
And hope that it never changes.
Well, we have to protect it.
Everybody.
(acoustic guitar music)
(surf goes in and out on the beach)