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Two campers eaten by a griz near Barter Island, AK_Mike watch your backside.  

Remember big gun and then practice, practice and more practice.  

They story said that they had an unsued gun with them.  Also sounds if they were doing everything right (Bear Proof Food COntainers).  I wonder if the Bear got them while they were sleeping or if they just never extpected it to happen (gun packed)

May God bless them and hopefully it went quickly and without too much pain

Yep, happened where I am now.  There was some really bad fog a couple days ago and late at night/wee hours I heard a helicopter and thought - "Who the hell is flying around in this soup?  You can't see 50 feet".  Well, we found out later.

This place is/was hopping with tourists, bird watchers, and scientists.  Plenty more where they came from

I think this is going to put a cramp on the local business that hosts them and acts as the local air carrier.  I expect not to see so many people down at the airport after this.

At least they had a gun, not some silly pepper spray.  I wonder what kind of firearm it was, some tree huggers when forced to take one sometimes just take a .22 or  something silly like that.  I also wonder about the bear - was it really hungry or something?  Had it been fed by humans (sure way to make sure the bear will eventually have to be killed) or had it fed off of food gained by camp raids?  As a rule, except for Polar Bear, bears don't usually seek human flesh unless desperate or when in defense mode (of territory or cubs), and are scared of people if they have never seen them.

Many questions.

BTW, I don't think ANWR extends that far south, they weren't in it, they only flew from it to get there.  I could be wrong about the boundaries though.

Mike

Where is the easiest place to the Polar Bears and actually be able to get a picture of them?

Anchorage Zoo!
Ha Ha!  Turns out you can almost see Alaksa from here.

Truthfully though, when I was at UAF the place for polar bears was a "short" drive up the Hall road.  Once you see out Buildings with Bear protection around the doors you're there.

I spent some time up in that area and the bears there are small and mean.  Our backyard growlers are well mannered compared to them. If you want to photograph the white ones try Churchill or York Factory Manitoba. I hunted waterfowl up there a long time ago and there was a lot more of them than I wanted to deal with.

 Being out in the bush, I don't always get the news even when it happens where I am.  I was sad to learn the unfortunate couple were Alaskans.  I also discovered they were not in the mountains as the TV blip led me to believe, but on the Hula Hula river only 12 miles south of here.  They did everything right, food in bear containers, firearms, etc.

Spotting Polar bears.  While I have seen them at Oliktok in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields (on the coast), I had my share in Barrow.  I saw them even in the summer when I took a tour to the northern tip.  My bio picture is me standing on the most northern point in America, I took it on that tour.  (Of course, Alaska is the most northern, western, AND eastern state since the chain extends across the date line, BUWAHAHAHA!  Heck, we used to have five time zones, no lie)  They are around the station where I worked.  The multipicture below is of a young bear that discovered our dumpster and could not be deterred even after three days of hazing, sadly the magnificent beast had to be put down.  One fall, when the polar bears could not get out onto the pac ice yet, about 50 or more were in the area, all around the station.  One slept naught but 20 yards from my slightly open window of the room I slept in, while my chambered shotty rested under the window between me and the bear of course.

However, the most I have seen is here in Barter Island (village of Kaktovik).  I have personal video of the polar bears coming in off the pac ice and taking turns getting a snack at the village bone yard.  These are common with villages, all bones and carcasses are dumped in a remote location so as not to attract bear into the village.  Normally, p-bears are not social animals, but they were politely taking turns.  There were more than 35 of them, more but I had trouble keeping track of the count as they went in and out of the frame.

The picture of the p-bear in the window was actually taken at our Cape Lisburne station.  Oliktok, where I worked for 6 years, is the only station where a polar bear busted in through the window (just like the one in the picture) and mauled an employee before being put down.  There is still blood on the wall and a slug hole in the nearest door.  It's the station library and some buckshot fell out of a book I took from the shelf one day.

To someone who wants to see the white beast I recommend going during the seasons for them in spring and fall where they are either about to go out onto the ocean pac ice or in from the same.  Fly here to Barter Island/Kaktovik, or go to Barrow and take a tour to the northernmost point.  The shot of the bear on the ice is the one I took on my tour, during one of our warmest days.  They don't really hibernate but they hole up and lounge about.  I saw a least half a dozen or more that day out on the ice.


This one had to be put down, and was done so by a simultaneous shots from a .338WM and .375H&H.  Notice how I was taking the picture farther away (actuall about a 100' though it's hard to tell) than those yayhoos in the window which was about 15 feet away away from the bear.


From our Lisburne station.  I've had similar experiences, just never took pictures where I am of it, I was too busy looking for my shotty.


From our Pt. Barrow station again.


Taken during my northern point tour of Barrow when I worked there, and this was in "the summer".  We only have two seasons there, summer and winter.


My buddy hamming it up with a stuffed P-Bear.  They can stand over 10' tall.

The White One's
If you have any doubt about AK Mikes 10' statement count the 6" boards on this photo. Ignorance is bliss. We had several days of favorable winds while camping there and were extremely lucky.  It was taken at the Hudson Bay Trading Post in York Factory Manitoba when we were there waterfowl hunting.  The caretaker had just flown his wife out because she was nervous about the white ones coming through the windows like AK Mike's photo's. Some where I have a photo of a Ford Econoline that was taken across the bay from Churchill Manitoba.  Hunters had left geese in it and two Polar Bears made it look like it had been in several demoliton derbies and lost them all.

Mike

Awsome pictures.  We had a patient who took pictures of the PB's eating ona whale carcus in one of the villages.  Apparently there was an outfit that fly small groups into the area where the bears were.  He had some incredible photos to say the least.  Crazy thing about it...

He tells me "Yeah it was great, I could get within 50 feet and they never even paid attention to me"

Holy smoke, brass balls.  I wanted to ask him how far away the tourist guide was.

During the one incident where an employee was attacked, he was walking by a window at our Oliktok Station (in the Prudhoe Bay Oil Fields) and saw a polar bear outside.  The p-bear looked back and started coming towards the window.  The man inside swatted the window with a rolled up newspaper and told it to buzz off.  The p-bear then proceded to come right through the window.  It was only a young bear (few years old I think) but tore right into a window like in my picture above.  The window itself was probably 6-7 feet off the ground.

The man ran into the next room, then tried to hole up in the station library in that next living module (the northern stations are long modular 'trains').  The door opened inward and had no lock so he had no chance, bear came right in.  Normally, all guns must be locked up per USAF regulations and only the Station Chief is supposed to have the key.  Either the man getting chewed on (it was biting his head) was the S. Chief or another man was but not in the area.  Another employee saw what was happening, ran back to his room which was the other way (no way to get past the bear and to the locker in the other direction), grabbed his shotty and came back shooting the bear and ending the confrontation.  The shitty thing is he was forced to resign (or be fired) because he had a gun stored in his own room.  Later the rules were changed so that if a bear threat is emminent, a weapon can be loaded and centrally located in the open.  The company doesn't provide firearms due to required training and liability, they give us canned salsa, err, I mean pepper spray.  So we provide our own, at least the smart ones.  The victim lived, a doctor from an oilfield trauma center came and saved his life, all where taken away in an ambulance.  This is a rare thing for us as at most of our stations there are no roads, no hospital, no ambulance - if you have an accident you can only pray that you survive long enough for a medivac though bad weather can prevent that for even weeks at a time.

The autopsy of the bear showed it to be young (curious buggers), low in body fat (hungry), and had an abcess somewhere on it's body (in pain and pissed off).  Worse possible combinations.

What makes the Polar Bear so dangerous is that they fear NOTHING.  They have no predators, they are at the top.  Even humans don't scare them - to a p-bear, if it moves, it's food.

Grizzleys, Brownies, and Black bears normally don't attack people, and are scared of them if they haven't seen humans.  A shot cracked above their head will normally deter them.

Where and what do polar bears eat?  Wherever and whatever they damn well feel like and no silly window or vehicle cab is going to stop them, just slow them down.

One I took up near Prudhoe. A griz stalking a herd of muskox. The big bull charged him. It was funny watching that bear try to get away from that charge.


And that polar bear that was way south near pump station 3 and 4

Same bear, different day

Come on Bill, those photos obviously are fake photoshop masterpieces.  Everyone knows that the pipeline has killed all of the animals and you would never see an animal within 100 miles of it.

Just kidding, awsome photos
Chris

Nice pics, I'm adding them to my polar bear photo collection.

BTW, I didn't mention going up the haul road to see p-bears.  If I recall correctly, ever since 9/11 they don't let tourists travel into and through the oil fields which you must do to get to the coast.  There where 60 to 70+ polar bears spotted (with a FLIR pod on a helo) on the spit of land that follows the coast near Oliktok and going East.  I was shocked!  I didn't know there were so many, so close.

Chris, you busted me giving out pipeline propaganda.

The bunny huggers that are against drilling up there sure don't like seeing pictures like that.

That herd of Musk Ox brings back good memories, I have stopped and watched them many times. I knew the guide/outfitter that operated at Happy Valley years back. It is my understanding he died in a plane crash a few years back. I really like that part of the state especially the South slope of the Brooks.

How does it go? "You don't hunt Polar Bears, they hunt you!"

Quoted: That herd of Musk Ox brings back good memories, I have stopped and watched them many times. I knew the guide/outfitter that operated at Happy Valley years back. It is my understanding he died in a plane crash a few years back. I really like that part of the state especially the South slope of the Brooks.

I took that picture real close to Happy Valley

Update in todays paper.

Bear was healthy with no signs of injury, disease, or hunger.  Was a typical sized bear for that area.  They aren't able to figure out why it ate the people

Maybe it was just pissed off by all the tourists, got all liquored up and decided to take care of business?



I know, I'm a bad man...

Nope, y'all have it all wrong.

You see, in a sleeping bag we look just like a great big ol burrito.  How could he resist?

Well, the campers kept their food in bear proof containers at a distance.  Maybe that's what ticked off the bear and he showed them what they could do with their bear proof food containers.

Seriously though, maybe he didn't like other animals (i.e. people) in HIS territory.

thanks for sharing those pics!!