{"id":33757,"date":"2021-01-26T00:05:32","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T08:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/?post_type=custom_features&p=33757"},"modified":"2023-06-14T10:49:07","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T17:49:07","slug":"where-now-grizzly-bear","status":"publish","type":"custom_features","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/features\/where-now-grizzly-bear\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Now Grizzly Bear?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Congratulations to Brian Payton on winning a Digital Publishing Awards<\/a> for this article.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A bear emerges from dense vegetation and pauses on the shore. It\u2019s early spring, and the young grizzly has only recently roused from hibernation, ravenous and driven. He lifts his head and gazes out across the falling tide to the opposite shore, where forested slopes are close enough to make out individual trees. The bear stands and sniffs the air.<\/p>\n

Grizzlies can see about as well as we can, but it\u2019s their olfactory powers\u2014at least 2,000 times more acute than ours\u2014that most likely set them in motion. We\u2019ll never grasp how they perceive the world, let alone what they\u2019re thinking. For some reason, this bear falls back on all fours, ambles away from prime habitat, and wades into the sea.<\/p>\n

To reach the far shore, he dog-paddles west across Johnstone Strait, one of the narrowest navigable channels that make up the fabled Inside Passage. This stretch of water separates the North American mainland from the largest island on the Pacific coast, British Columbia\u2019s Vancouver Island. It\u2019s only three to 4.5 kilometers across but anywhere from 70 to 500 meters deep. Swift tidal currents can reach 15 kilometers per hour. Vessels of every description pass through, from kayaks, to freighters, to cruise ships carrying thousands of passengers. At this time of year, the water temperature averages about 8 \u00b0C, but the bear has almost no fat left to insulate him from the cold.<\/p>\n

When he finally shakes off on the other side, the bear arrives in a place much like he left behind: dense stands of hemlock, cedar, and fir\u2014coastal temperate rainforest\u2014a grizzly Shangri-La. All that\u2019s missing is other grizzlies. There are plenty of black bears and cougars about, but grizzlies are conspicuously absent. Maps showing the historical range of grizzlies color virtually the entire Pacific coast of North America but leave Vancouver Island oddly blank. And yet, in the spring of 2020, at least seven grizzlies were spotted roaming the island\u2019s east coast. Although sightings have increased over the last 20 years, the island doesn\u2019t have a viable grizzly population. Locals say that, after causing a stir, some of the interlopers are captured and returned to the mainland, a few become nuisances and are killed, and most eventually swim back to the mainland on their own.<\/p>\n