Back to a spot I enjoyed so much in 2014, Hyder, AK. I got here on Saturday. The salmon had not started running strong so there were few in the creek. Bears had been feeding elsewhere where the pickings were better. I went over to Fish Creek Sunday afternoon and soon after I arrived a black bear sow came through with her two cubs. She didn’t stick around long and the cubs were not easy to capture, they stuck close to the sow when they could and the brusk is very overgrown and thick.
We did see another black bear one morning for just a very few minutes, it seemed rather tentative and didn’t stick around long.
After several days of very brief sightings of black bears (maybe one per day) some of us early birds got to see a brown bear come down the creek. Not as early as some I arrived just in the nick of time. This boar is one I saw 4 years ago and is called Dawg Bear.
There is a small lagoon near the start of the board walk, on the opposite side from Fish Creek. There is a creek feeding through it and beavers have decided the small outlet would be an excellent spot for a dam. The rangers have broken the dams up but the beavers persist.
The really fun thing for me about the lagoon is that there are at least a couple of otter families that frequent it. One time there were 6 or 7 otters including a few pups there. I’ll continue to watch and photograph them.
Another benefit of the dead fish the bears partially eat is that it attracts the mink. Mink are very elusive and fast but one morning we were able to watch a mink drag pieces of a fish into the brush and finally the rest of the carcass.
