Mt. Nusatsum

Mt. Nusatsum

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Floods Are Hard on Bears

This has been a bad year for bears in the Central Coast.  The prolonged dry spring, hot summer and lack of moisture prevented the production of even a half decent wild berry crop - there really wasn't much of a feast to be had there.  Then the chum and pink salmon runs in the Central Coast were very low this year which compounded the problem of the summer feeding regime which would have been heavy on berries and then from August on till late fall heavily feasting on fish.  Then there was the Great Flood of 2010 - any salmon still spawning in the tributaries and the main Bella Coola River were wiped out.  The better quality fresh carcasses that would have sufficed if live fish weren't available are also widely spread and most gone.  It's going to be a tough winter for bears.  There's a lot of sign of bear tracks patrolling along the river in the newly deposited sediment probably looking and waiting.   Their  only possible source of fish for food now is to hope for a strong late coho salmon run, something close to last year would be nice, but unlikely.  Last years run provided fresh coho right into January.


On the weather front there was some talk earlier that we were going to get another dump of rain, but so far it hasn't materialized and looking at the satellite photo I think it's going to be Prince Rupert and Terrace's turn for a big rain.  Grizzly

1 comment:

  1. That's ab big foot! Hope your salmon run is as good as ours has been this year

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