Tough Guy Showering
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawaken.”
-Anatole France
While visiting the Moraine Creek area of Katmai National Park in Alaska, we were blessed to share the morning in the water with this lad.
One aspect of up-close and personal Coastal brown bear (Grizz in the lower 48) photography that I did not visualize in either my day or night dreams of the day was just how scarred up the boars would be. At first, I thought it was some type of leafy material entangled in their coat…nope…it is hanging scar tissue from fighting!
While standing in the creek with younger males and females fishing all around us, it was this large fellow that I couldn’t stop photographing. As a child I always pictured Heaven as fields, mountains and the like. Little did I realize that for me it would be standing in a creek in the rain, in Alaska with my bride with 5-7 bears within a 30–40-yard radius!
Other bears came and went, but he seemed to stay in a small area with us, at one point fighting off another male on the other side of a small, brush covered island not more than 30 feet away from us! Shortly after the skirmish, he decided to mark his territory. When he stood up to grab the branches, only then did we truly realize how big he was as our guide pointed out that he was a seven-footer!
Grabbing the branches, he rubbed them against his scent glands located around his eyes, alerting others that there is a big male in the area and based on how high the source of the scent, the size of the male laying claim to the area. Bending the branches down might be seen as cheating, but if it keeps one from receiving more scars, I would do it too!
From the achieves and taken on 28 July, 2019.
Tough Guy Showering
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawaken.”
-Anatole France
While visiting the Moraine Creek area of Katmai National Park in Alaska, we were blessed to share the morning in the water with this lad.
One aspect of up-close and personal Coastal brown bear (Grizz in the lower 48) photography that I did not visualize in either my day or night dreams of the day was just how scarred up the boars would be. At first, I thought it was some type of leafy material entangled in their coat…nope…it is hanging scar tissue from fighting!
While standing in the creek with younger males and females fishing all around us, it was this large fellow that I couldn’t stop photographing. As a child I always pictured Heaven as fields, mountains and the like. Little did I realize that for me it would be standing in a creek in the rain, in Alaska with my bride with 5-7 bears within a 30–40-yard radius!
Other bears came and went, but he seemed to stay in a small area with us, at one point fighting off another male on the other side of a small, brush covered island not more than 30 feet away from us! Shortly after the skirmish, he decided to mark his territory. When he stood up to grab the branches, only then did we truly realize how big he was as our guide pointed out that he was a seven-footer!
Grabbing the branches, he rubbed them against his scent glands located around his eyes, alerting others that there is a big male in the area and based on how high the source of the scent, the size of the male laying claim to the area. Bending the branches down might be seen as cheating, but if it keeps one from receiving more scars, I would do it too!
From the achieves and taken on 28 July, 2019.