In the fall, grizzly bears wait eagerly for the return of salmon, their favorite food. But they also enjoy the small crimson fruit of the Pacific crab apple tree.
In the fall, grizzly bears wait eagerly for the return of salmon, their favorite food. But they also enjoy the small crimson fruit of the Pacific crab apple tree.
Fall
Like all British Columbian forests, the Great Bear Rainforest is composed mainly of evergreen trees that remain green all winter long. But remember there are deciduous trees too. In September, when the days get shorter and the air grows cooler, the leaves on these once-green trees turn russet and gold. If you’re lucky enough to visit the forest on a dry fall day when the sun is out, the sky is blue and the trees above you have knitted together a green, scarlet and yellow quilt, you will see one of the most beautiful scenes in nature. One of these trees, the Pacific crab apple, is a fall favorite of coastal bears, and the sight of a chocolate brown bear standing on his hind legs as he reaches for the tree’s crimson fruit is one you’ll never forget.
Spawned-out pink salmon like these will be eaten by many different scavengers, although, given a choice, bears prefer fresh salmon. Grizzly bears are just one of nearly 200 species of rainforest creatures that are known to depend on salmon as a food source.
This grizzly has caught a large chum salmon for lunch. Chum or “dog” salmon are especially fat and much sought after by hungry bears like this one.
But it’s not just crab apples that tell rainforest bears it’s fall. There’s something indefinable in the air that lets them—and their noses—know it’s time to leave their summer berry patches behind and head to the nearest river. That’s because fall is when salmon return to the rainforest’s rivers and streams to spawn, and bears’ noses are so powerful and sensitive they can smell the salmon even when they’re still at sea. It’s a smell bears love! They can’t wait for the large silvery fish to come back to the rainforest, because they know that once they do, everything about their own lives will change.
Scientists describe salmon as a “foundation” species. That may sound like a strange thing to say, but just as a building has a foundation, so, in a way, has the rainforest, and the salmon are it. What this means is that the survival of many rainforest species, including bears, depends in a big way on them. Their life cycle begins in the spring when millions upon millions of young salmon swim downstream and out to the open ocean. How far they travel and where they go is still a mystery. Depending on what kind of salmon they are, they’ll remain at sea for two and a half to four and a half years. That is, if they aren’t caught and eaten by a killer whale, a sea lion, a seal or a human being first. However, when those years are up and fall comes, they find their way back to the very river where they were born and the exact place where they hatched.
Coastal bears spend a great deal of time in the water. In their search for sedge-filled estuaries and the best salmon runs, they regularly must cross fjords, inlets, rivers and streams. Of course, they also like to cool off when the weather gets warm.
Sockeye salmon like these ones turn bright red when they enter their fresh-water spawning grounds. Sockeye are very specialized salmon and can only spawn near large lake systems. Unlike pink or chum salmon, sockeye do not head right out into the ocean after they are born, but prefer to stay in the fresh-water environment for up to two years. The rich, dark red meat of the sockeye is prized by both humans and bears.
The journey up the home river is often a tremendously difficult one made against a swift and merciless current. You may have seen pictures of salmon jumping waterfalls from one pool to another. Think of the strength and determination it takes to do that. And they don’t always succeed. They may have to try several times before they manage a leap like that, only to have to do it all over again a little farther up the river. But the salmon keep pushing because they know somehow that it’s the only way they’re going to get a chance to lay their eggs and make sure future generations follow them. That relentless drive to reproduce is true for all life on Earth. No matter what you are—plant or animal—you always want to make sure that others like you follow in your place.
Bears love salmon eggs and sometimes are able to squeeze the body of the salmon so the eggs pop into their mouths like little candies. The eggs may be small but they’re so full of fat that bears will choose them over all other parts of the salmon if they can.
The rainforest salmon run is one of the most amazing migrations on Earth, and just how they manage it year after year is still something that puzzles scientists. Some researchers think it has to do with the way a particular river smells. Others suggest the fish have some sort of compass system built into them. Whatever the secret, it’s a true biological miracle.
When they finally do come upon the spot where they were born, female salmon look for a gravelly bed to lay their eggs. Each one lays thousands of them. Nature seems to know that only a few of the tiny salmon that hatch from these thousands of original eggs will survive long enough to become adult salmon and swim back up the river to reproduce. The rest will die as young fish on their way to sea, as adult fish swimming in the ocean, or as spent fish on their way home up rivers, where they are caught by hungry rainforest animals like bears.
As salmon migrate from the ocean to fresh water, they begin to change color and shape as they prepare to spawn. The color they turn depends on what kind of salmon they are. Pink and chum salmon turn mottled shades of black and white, while coho and sockeye turn red. Pink salmon develop humps on their backs, which is why they’re sometimes called “humpies.” Chums, which develop larger curved jaws, are called “dogs.” Chinook turn a mottled red and are known as “springs,” “kings” or, if they’re really big, “tyees.”
Once a female salmon lays her eggs, a male will fertilize them and help cover them with gravel. Then the two salmon, mom and dad, will stand ready to protect the eggs from other salmon that may try to use the same spot. This completes the spawning process. Then, their journey over and their work done, the male and female die, and the cycle of life they began when they hatched in the same riverbed two or three or four years earlier is complete. The following spring, the eggs the female laid and both parents guarded in the fall will hatch, and the miraculous salmon cycle will begin all over again.
These bears are taking an afternoon nap and a break from a hard morning’s fishing. In the fall, bears consume so much salmon that they have to rest from time to time to digest their dinner. Sometimes the bears’ bellies get so big they have to dig holes in the ground before they can lie down comfortably. These holes are called belly pits.
Without the salmon, which feed not only bears but also wolves, otters, eagles and more than two hundred other species of rainforest animals, the Great Bear Rainforest would be a very different place. But vital as the salmon are, their annual return is no sure thing. Sometimes disaster strikes and they don’t come back.
This happened recently in a place called the Broughton Archipelago, on the southern edge of the Great Bear Rainforest. Millions of pink salmon were expected to turn up at the end of summer to swim upstream, spawn and die as they had for thousands of years. Instead, only a few thousand appeared, and the bears went hungry. What happened to the missing fish? Many scientists believe sea lice were to blame. Sea lice, tiny parasitic organisms that feed off the flesh of salmon and other fish, are natural in the ocean. Mature salmon are commonly found with a few sea lice on them. But in the concentrated environment of fish farms, sea lice can multiply to the point where there are so many that they become dangerous. Experts think wild salmon smolts—the name given to young salmon migrating to sea—in the Broughton Archipelago were infected by sea lice when their migration took them past fish farms. The young salmon were simply not strong enough to withstand the attacks by sea lice, and they died in huge numbers. That meant fewer young wild salmon were around to grow up. And fewer grown salmon in the ocean meant fewer fish returning to the rivers and streams to spawn and feed the bears. Instead bears living near the Broughton Archipelago had to rely on less-nourishing plant material to feed themselves for the long winter ahead.
Much the same thing happened farther north several years later when chum salmon failed to return to a number of rivers along the central BC coast. And because of that, all kinds of bears—grizzlies, blacks and spirit bears—starved to death. Before then it was common to see crowds of bears along rainforest riverbanks, feasting on the salmon that streamed in by the millions on their way home. But without the salmon there was nothing for the bears to feast on, so they went hungry. It was thought that overfishing by people was to blame.
In a good year, however, millions of chinook, chum, pink, coho and sockeye will fight their way up the many streams of the Great Bear Rainforest to spawn. But even in that good year, many won’t succeed because of all the animals that catch and eat them on the way—animals like whales, seals, humans and bears. Because when it comes to salmon fishing, no one has tricks like a wily old bear.
When the salmon return to the rivers, bears from all over the forest put their hermit ways aside and gather together to fish. It’s like a great big, months-long fishing derby, because to a bear there’s nothing better than the season’s first taste of salmon; to them it’s like chocolate to a child. As usual, the biggest, strongest bears—usually the biggest, strongest grizzlies—get the best fishing spots. Weaker bears and mothers and cubs have to make do with places where the pickings aren’t as rich. But in the fall, if everything goes the way nature intends, there should be so many salmon that no one goes hungry.
Grizzly bears needn’t think twice before swimming across a river or inlet. They are superb swimmers and can swim many kilometers of open ocean if necessary.
Bears, like people, have different tastes, especially when it comes to eating salmon. Some like the fatty eggs best. Others like the skin and brains. Some aren’t nearly as fussy and will eat the head, the tail and almost everything in between. What they don’t eat they throw away. After a day of bear fishing, the rainforest’s riverbanks stink to high heaven. The odor is so strong you might think you’d walked into a fish-packing plant by mistake. But not for long, because in the end not one scale is wasted. There’s no such thing as garbage in the rainforest, especially when it comes to salmon. Don’t forget, it’s probably fair to say that the whole rainforest lives in some way off the salmon’s shiny backs. Even the trees benefit, because when the bears drag the salmon carcasses from the water, they leave what they don’t eat on the ground. Then, thanks to all the microscopic creatures that feed on those carcasses, they decompose into the soil and fill it with nutrients. Think of it as nature’s compost, because just like compost that feeds a vegetable garden, the good things that come from the salmon help the rainforest trees grow faster and taller. They also make for sweeter, tastier berry patches. So in a way, when bears haul salmon out of the river and drop them on the ground, they’re like gardeners preparing beds for planting. As any gardener will tell you, it’s not unusual to use fish fertilizer to help plants grow. Now you know why.
Bears also have their own special fishing styles. Some will plunge headfirst into the water and grab fish in their jaws. A few show-offs will throw themselves belly-first into a stream, but as with a lot of show-offs, it’s a losing strategy. Mostly their loud splashes scare the fish away. Others sit patiently on the river’s edge, stick their paws in the water and scoop the fish out as if they were spooning corn flakes from a bowl. Some wait for the fish to leap out of the water so they can grab them in midair. Some pin the salmon against rocks with their long claws, while others jump on top of them and crush them between their front elbows and stomach. A couple of cagey individuals might stand in the water and do nothing. That way they fool the fish into mistaking their legs for protective tree trunks. Then when the salmon thinks it’s found a safe hiding place, the bear strikes and gobbles it up. For the unlucky fish, it’s the last mistake it’ll ever make.
Some scientists believe spirit bears are white because their lighter color helps them catch more salmon than their black cousins. They reckon their white fur blends in with the sky and this fools the salmon into thinking nothing is there.
Some of the bears who turn up to fish are the rainforest’s rare and precious white or Kermode bears—or as they’re now known around the world, spirit bears. Spirit bears are only found on a few islands and the nearby mainland in the very heart of the Great Bear Rainforest, and in the whole world there are thought to be only about four hundred of them. In other words, only about one in every ten black bears found on these few islands is white. But even though they look different from black bears and are called by a different name, they are simply black bears of a different color. They’re the same size as regular black bears and often have black-furred parents and/or brothers and sisters. The only difference is they’re white, though some have a slight marmalade tint to them. Sometimes when you see them on a misty gray day, they look more like ghosts than real flesh-and-blood bears.
A spirit bear snorkels for salmon.
Why are they white? That’s another rainforest mystery. Some scientists think their pale color helps them fish better. It makes sense. Imagine you’re a salmon looking up through the water at the gray sky. If a black bear is standing above you ready to pounce, you’re going to notice it. But if the bear is the same color as the sky, you might not because the white bear’s fur will blend into the gray. And if you can’t see something, you’re not going to hide from it. That would give the white or spirit bear a natural advantage over its black cousins—at least during the day.
This is how evolution works. When an animal is born with a natural or biological advantage over its brothers and sisters and cousins, it becomes a stronger, more adaptable animal, and a stronger, more adaptable animal is more likely to breed than a weaker one. And when that stronger animal breeds, it will pass on its natural advantage to its offspring, so they’ll be stronger too. Then when they breed, their children will have the same advantage to pass on to their children. And so on and so on. Maybe, scientists speculate, that’s how the spirit bear got its white fur.
White mother bears can have black cubs and black mother bears can have white cubs in the Great Bear Rainforest. Sometimes sibling cubs are both black and white.
A First Nations legend tells a different story. It suggests that Raven, the creator of the rainforest and its resident trickster, flew among all the black bears and turned every tenth one white as a reminder of the last ice age, which ended about 12,000 years ago. This is as good an explanation as any because no one knows for sure. What do you think?
What is certain, however, is the special place spirit bears hold in the hearts and culture of native people along British Columbia’s central coast. First Nations stories say that after turning the bears white, Raven promised them they would be the best bear fishers on the coast, and that they would live forever in peace and harmony in an eternally green rainforest. And until the coming of non-Native settlers to the BC coast, Raven’s promise was kept.
Grizzly bear with a fresh-caught pink salmon. On a good day’s fishing, bears like this one can catch more than ten salmon every hour.
The Tsimshian people have told the story of Moksgm’ol, their name for the spirit bear, for generations. But non-Native people only came to know of them in the early 1900s when settlers working in the region began to hear stories of a spirit bear haunting the forest. Occasionally a white pelt would turn up at fur trading posts, but even then the idea of a white bear was thought by most people to be fantastic. Some traders thought the pelts came from polar bears who had somehow lost their way and traveled south.
Now, more than a hundred years later, the spirit bear is anything but a secret. Thanks to the efforts of First Nations and environmentalists, the bear has become an international conservation symbol. But you can only find it in the Great Bear Rainforest. This is yet another reason why the forest itself is so important. If the forest the spirit bear lives in isn’t saved, the spirit bear won’t be saved either.
By late November it’s time for bears of all colors—black, white and grizzled—to return to their dens or build new ones. By this time, if things have gone their way, their coats will be thick and shaggy, and their stomachs will be so full of fish—not to mention crab apples, angelica, cow parsnip and other plants that grow to their ripest and tastiest in fall—they’ll drag on the ground. Some bears grow so fat they can no longer lie flat to sleep. First they have to dig a hole in the ground to fit their huge bellies. At this point they’re more like seals than bears. They’re also calmer and less aggressive than at any other time. No wonder. Have you ever heard the expression “fat and happy”? It applies to bears too. When that happens, they know it’s been a good year.
