Brooks Falls Brown Bears

All of the photos in this folder were taken at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, Alaska. We saw and were able to photograph aproximately 25 bears at this location, the most being in sight at one time being 15. The bears fish in different manners based on learning and status. One bear dives completely underwater, thus the nickname diver. Some snorkel keeping their ears out of the water, others sit in a good spot and look into the water, some sit near the bank and jump into the water and fianlly some stand on top of the falls waiting. The rangers have given nicknames ot many of the bears, the funnest being Lurch (remember the adams family) Lurch is a very large bear (he's the one scratching his back against the tree. He has a spot that he sits and waits at, but also will sometimes walk over to another bear that has caught a fish and intimidates that bear into leaving it for him. No wonder he's big. The bears will bluff each other and sometimes fight to obtain the prime fishing spots.