By Libby B Bushell

Special to the Homer Independent Press

Hello from Moraine Creek, Homer!

It’s been weeks since I was bonking heads and ripping gills at China Poot, so the fishing mania of summer feels like past tense to me. But to the bears of Katmai National Preserve, the feasting season has just begun.

A brown bear skins a sockeye salmon. He’ll eat the skin and brains first and, unless he’s really hungry, he’ll throw the rest to the birds. (Libby B Bushell/HIP)

Mirror Lake, situated just west of the continental divide of the Alaska Peninsula, feeds Funnel Creek, which flows into Moraine Creek. Moraine meanders down to Kukaklek Lake, which narrows into the Alagnak River and continues on to Bristol Bay. The sockeye salmon I’m watching today have been swimming upstream for well over 150 miles since they were sporting their silver-blue ocean skins.

They are bright red and green by now, humped and grinning like a gargoyle. They haven’t eaten since the sea, and they are becoming exhausted. It’s only a few more miles to Mirror Lake at the top of Funnel Creek, where they will spawn (if they haven’t already), but in between are at least a couple hundred bears.

It’s a beautiful day in early August. Skies are brilliantly blue, and Moraine Creek is running red. I’m walking across the tundra from Crosswind Lake to the river, where I see my first sign of the feeding frenzy. A medium-sized male bear, half-shed and pretty scruffy, is sprawled out in the hummocks, absolutely bloated and panting from the strain on his metabolism. How many fish has he eaten so far today? Three? Four? Five? The biggest bears of Katmai can eat nearly 100 pounds of salmon in a single day—that’s 10 to 20 whole fish, but this guy is not our biggest bear. We snap a couple photos and move on.

From the bluffs above Moraine Creek, we are treated to a surreal scene. Thousands of fish outswim a Snorkeling Bear. The water is glass, and the alpine fireweed in the foreground is hot pink. Clickclickclick.

A brown bear swims through a school of sockeye salmon with alpine fireweed showing off in the foreground. (Libby B Bushell/HIP)

Snorkeling bears swim through a school with all but their ears underwater. They’ve got their eyes open as they bear paddle out in the deep. They don’t catch a lot of fish with this technique. The water is too deep,and the fish are too quick, but it sure does make for pretty pictures. And I imagine it’s also fun. Bears do enjoy having fun. But what’s this?! The bear does a dive and comes up with a mouthful; the Scuba is successful!

The reds are wise to the snorkel. They clear out of the way when a bear swims by. (Libby B Bushell/HIP)

“He got one!” I say, and my tourists cheer. Clickclickclick. But the fish he holds in his teeth is clearly stiff with rigor mortis. The bear looks around to see if anyone is watching his less-than-impressive catch. Seeing us on the bluff, he does a big dramatic thrash with the salmon, swinging his head in violent arcs as though the sockeye is putting up a big flopping fight. Then he snaps the spine and turns his back on us to eat it.

The Snorkel: real pretty to watch, but not very effective. 5/10
The Scuba: the dead fish are still fish so why not dive for them? 7/10

We move along the bluffs to watch a subadult doing a Sit ‘n’ Wait on the riverbank, pondering life or fish, or other important matters of bear existence. It may be waiting for the perfect moment to do the bellyflop or maybe it’s waiting for the right school to swim up for a quick dash ‘n’ grab. Maybe it’s looking for some easy scraps to thieve or thinking about his family. Why did Mom kick him out this spring? Was it because at 300 pounds he was too big for suckling? Why won’t she feed him her bear milk anymore? Life is tough for a young bear. A school of salmon swims just underneath as he watches them go by. He doesn’t even try.

The Sit ‘n’ Wait: the river bank is not a food bank; you gotta go fish ‘em, kid. 1/10

A young bear watches a school of sockeye swim by. (Libby B Bushell/HIP)

Now we are below the bluffs just a few hundred yards downstream of the confluence with Funnel Creek. Here, an island separates the main channel from an inches-deep braid, where eight bears are doing the Sit ‘n’ Wait. But these ones are sitting in the river or just on the edge, poised for the next school to swim into the shallows. I maneuver my group onto the island to be in the thick of the soon-to-be fishing frenzy.

Upstream, a bear does a bellyflop and scares three salmon into this shallow braid. Now all eight bears are up and eyeing, stepping this way and that, doing the splashy dance of the Dash ‘n’ Grab. One fish swims too close to a dashing bear near us and wham! With a slam of her paw, she pins it to the substrate. The salmon flaps its tail in a fluttering panic before the bear chomps on its skull and sucks out its brain. As fast as she can, she cracks its back, then rips off its skin.

Swallowing, she looks up to see a big guy approaching like a thug in an alley. He’s eyeing her catch, but as he gets closer, a splashing, moaning, cub-scuffle distracts him. He turns back to see a mother bear succeed in the Dash ‘n’ Grab across the river. Her three 2-year-old cubs bicker loudly over her catch, which gives our female bear enough time to grab her salmon and move it onto the bank even closer to us. But it’s not far enough. 

The thug turns back and lumbers towards her. She knows her place in the hierarchy so, having already eaten the best parts of the fish, she leaves the carcass there and runs into the willows behind me. The Thieving Bear makes short work of his extorted salmon, consuming the entire thing, fins and guts and all.

The Dash ‘n Grab: very effective but requires follow-up defensive techniques. 8/10

The Thieving Bear: poor sportsmanship, boooo. 2/10

A bear, mid-dash! (Libby B Bushell/HIP)

While our thug is still munching in front of us, two bears chase a small school into a shallow spot and with two slams of paws, each land their own salmon. The thieving bear looks up at the flipper-flopping din, a sockeye tail dangling from his mouth. He seems to consider chasing them down, but they’re wise to his thievery, both trotting off into the willows to hide with their catches.

We wander to the confluence and sit down to watch the biggest bears fishing. Over the next hour I witness what may be the most impressive technique I’ve ever seen. I’ve named it The Pyramid Scheme, or Trickle Down Fishonomics.

One dominant bear parks his big ol’ butt at the tip of a gravel point at the bottom of the confluence of Funnel and Moraine Creeks. Below him are four bears in the water, each occasionally doing a bellyflop or a snorkel or a dash to try to land a salmon. Rarely are their techniques successful in the deeper water, but every time they try, it scares a whole school of salmon up towards the confluence in a confusion of red and green, every fish slamming into the gravel bar where the boss at the top of the pyramid sits.

He just scoops them up. He can only ever eat as much as the skin and the brains before the next bear downstream tries his luck with a flop and chases more fish into the boss. A flock of seagulls sits on the gravel bar with him, waiting to carry off the remains of his catch, and, in flight with a ragged salmon, they drop some bits, which trickle down to the unlucky bears who are doing all the work for the boss.

The Pyramid Scheme: nice to see the free market at work. 9/10

Trickle Down Fishonomics: but you gotta be the boss or else you’re just doing all the work: 3/10

A bear at the bottom of the pyramid scheme chases a school of salmon into the waiting jaws of the boss. If he’s lucky the birds will trickle down some scraps for him. (Libby B Bushell/HIP)

The bears of Moraine have learned capitalism, guys. But in the next edition of Dispatch from Katmai, I’ll give you a glimpse into the socialist structures at play upstream on Funnel Creek. Until then, I’ll see you outside!

Got questions about bears? You can contact the author through her website: libbybbushell.com.

Libby B Bushell is a local author and wildlife guide. She spends summers in Katmai with the bears and winters (the austral summer) in Antarctica with the emperor penguins. She is the founder of HoWL and is passionate about helping people get outside. It’s better out there!