BEARS!!!!

The foreground is my favorite Alaskan landscape so far...muskeg.


This cutie is a coastal Alaskan brown bear. He will be larger than a Grizzly once full grown, but as of today is only 2 1/2 years old and weighs around 600 lbs. At full size, he will be twice that. Grizzlies are an inland brown bear and the brown bears here in Sitka are coastal. The coastal bears are larger due to the longer growing season (more temperate conditions.)

He and his two siblings (all of whom live at the bear center) were born in the Sitka area. Unfortunately, their mom wandered into town too many times and ingested too much garbage. Though scientists never did a necropsy, they suspect that she was internally bound up with plastic garbage and died from complications of organ failure.

Her cubs were too young to survive on their own at that time and had no idea how to be wild bears. They are now educational ambassadors for tourists and locals who come through Fortress of the Bear, a name taken from the native Tlingit term Kootznoowoo which is the Tlingit name for Admiralty Island. Admiralty Island is located between Baranoff (where Sitka is located) and the mainland with Juneau. The island is home to more brown bears per square mile than anywhere else on the planet.