Valdez Trip, Day 2 continued

After getting all our fishing gear loaded back into the car, we drove slowly down Dayville Road on wildlife patrol. It didn't take long for us, as two highly experienced and highly trained wildlife spotters, to catch sight of a mother bear and three cubs.

We may have gotten a small clue when we saw a car pulled over watching something in the stream near the main road. Either way, we were happy to see them.

These cubs, being only a few months old, were very small.

One seemed extremely small compared to the other two.

The sow seemed to be capable of providing for them as she fished salmon after salmon out of the stream.

You can see several fish in this picture that she had pulled from the water and brought over to the cubs.

 It's no surprise that our friend, the runt, got last choice on everything.

 It seemed that he often ended up on the losing side when fighting for a fish. It was quite entertaining to listen to the growls, squeals, and cries coming from the furry pile of siblings as they battled for food.

 By now, quite a few people had pulled over to take pictures. Many perched themselves mere feet from the mom. This is a bad idea for so many reasons. For one thing, it stresses the mother. She may have stayed for a long time since the fishing was so good, if a crowd had not developed.

 As you can tell by the small size of both the mother and cubs, they needed to pack on all the calories they could find.

 Also, this a wild and unpredictable animal. She may have decided to charge at any minute if she felt threatened. Lucky for all spectators, she and the cubs fed for awhile and then wandered back into the forest.

We rolled on back to our room for the night after having a great day fishing and enjoying the bears.