Kodiak Brown Bears
 

My latest post to YouTube:

YouTube - Ayakulik Adventures

Please let me know what you think.
Kent

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Great video. That is an absolutely amazing place. The "behind the scenes" at the end is great.

Your proximity to the animals is amazing. Thanks for posting. (sorry for such a short comment on such an ambitious video project)

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Very nice work, Kent, with some beautiful sections of filming. It was interesting to watch the bear that was not particularly hungry, 'playing' with the salmon like a cat plays with mice.

I think some of the footage held far too long locked on certain subjects and so would improve with shorter cuts. I was also not too keen on the tempo and sound of the background narrative.

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Ryan, Tony;
Thanks for your comments. Tony I appreciate your constructive criticism. That's how we learn.
Kent

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Pretty amazing place; I did not know one is able to stay so close to the bears without being in a hide. Definitely, would not want to be so close to our brown bears, which is s different species. And I've always thought the Kodiak brown bears are more dangerous. At least, have got the impression they've killed far more people than the bear we have. Consequently, what comes to the video, find it very informative.

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Kent,

Did you guys have bear spray with you? I've just started to discover black bears here in Virginia after college now. (grew up a Washington DC suburbanite)

They're pretty docile here apparently, but I suppose its the city slicker in me that is terrified of being in the wild without a deterrent of some sort. :-) I have a can of spray with me whenever I go to Shenandoah National Park.

Incredible that a mother bear was comfortable with her cubs like that. Very cool.

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Hi Ryan;
Thanks for watching and your comment;
No we did not have bear spray. It's effectiveness is questionable.

The Ayakulik is a very unique place. It has had fisherman on the river during the salmon runs for the past 21 years. The bears have become accustomed to the people & they are well fed. In that 21 years there has not been an incident of injury.

Please pass the video link around.

Kent

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Kent, are the fisherman there together with the bears only in the summer time? It becomes somewhat comprehensible that the bears are docile, when there's a lot of food available. But I wonder, what happens in the autumn time when the salmons are gone and the bears are still there?

To give you an idea what it is with the birds here, there is one place where a lot of people photograph bears from hides. But one has to walk there for one kilometer from the end of the road. One friend of mine put this into words by saying, that after watching the whole night how the bears come and go silently, in the morning everybody likes to sing on the way back to the car. The explanation is, the common advice is, if you know there are bears nearby, it's better to make so much noise that they hear you. Then they will give way. The risk is to get between the dam and the cubs.

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Lauri
When the fish leave so do the fisherman and the bears.

I never felt threatened and I did inadvertently get between the sow and her 4 cubs. One of the cubs bawled bring mom running. She got close enough to see that all was well and then went about her business.

Great fun and exciting
Kent

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

I grew up in bush Alaska around big brown bears. The joke always went
Q) 'Do you know how to tell brown bear scat from black bear scat'?
A) 'Brown bear scat tastes like pepper and has bells in it'.

It was a joke, but the reality is that both bear spray and bells
are of limited use. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.
I learned at a young age, to carry a gun with me when hiking in bear
country. Maybe not the most politically correct thing, but
I also found, that when charged, a round into the dirt in front of
the bear always chased him away. Once my brother was out hiking
and came down a hill, and suddenly a bear came out of a den from
about 20 feet away, right at him. He had time for one shot and
dropped the bear. Later, when fish and game came to collect the
hide and such, they measured it at over 11 feet from nose to tail.

To the original poster, I thought it was a nice video. Good stuff,
you did a nice job of showing off our state :-) As has been mentioned,
eyeofmine.com has a good add on for the GoPro to make the underwater
video look MUCH better. You should shoot me an email, I might be able to
work out a business arrangement to sell your video for you.

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Not to digress too much, but I had been under the impression that spray was actually more effective than firearms, statistically speaking.

Bear Spray A Viable Alternative To Guns For Deterring Bears, Study Shows

That said, I welcome more seasoned advice. I haven't experienced bears in any significant amount. I suppose the best advice is to speak to experts in the areas one ventures into.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

How much would you say the Momma bear weighed Kent?

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Studies by scientists show pepper spray is pretty effective. Talk to
the people who live around big bears daily, and you hear stories about the
times it did NOT work. I guess I have too much respect for how big, fast
and generally mean the bears CAN be (although they usually are not)
to depend only on pepper spray. I would NEVER want to shoot a bear,
(except with my video camera!)but if it's him or me, I'm voting that
he goes down.

As this Alaskan author and scientist says in his study:

Pepper Spray Works, But Don't Bet Your Life On It, Alaska Science Forum

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Disagree. Some footage could have been longer, e g the distance shot when a bear rushed over the river and the bald eagles took off. Such a beautiful footage.

Some shots could have been discarded, to make the whole film less repetitive. Especially the short ones.

The description of the place and the people in the end was a good one.

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Gabe:
My email is kent at openairvideoproductions dot com

Sverker:
Thank you for your comments. I am always learning and hopefully each day brings a little improvement.

Enjoying

Kent

Re: Kodiak Brown Bears
 

Never, never, never, turn your back or trust a Alaskan Brown Bear. Never.

Dave Rice
Sitka, Alaska