What happens when a 1,000 pound brown bear belly flops into a school of salmon? Sometimes it will come up with one in its jaws but almost every time it sends some of the fish flying through the air.
Brown bears use a number of different techniques to catch their meals. If they are someplace like the infamous Brooks Falls, they can simply stand or sit and wait for the fish to jump out of the water as they swim upstream. In flatter terrain like this river, the bears have to take a much more active approach and each has varying levels of success.
While we saw some bears do little more than lunge with their head into the water to grab a fish, this particular bear took the “all in” approach. It would run and do a total belly flop into the water. It of course makes a tremendous splash and all you see is water and fish flying.
The action was pretty fun to see – even if you didn’t actually see the bear.
