The Great Bear Rainforest - Spirit Bears

[radar]

Finally got some photos from our trip to the Great Bear Rainforest in northwest British Columbia. Our first stop was to photograph the Spirit Bear, Kermode Bear (Ursus americanus kermodei). It is a subspecies of the American Black Bear. Note that it is not an albino, it is due to a recessive trait in their gene pool that causes these. It's parents are likely regular black bears. There aren't many of these bears, approx 200-300, predominantly in the northwest of British Columbia.


Waiting for some salmon


Coming down for a feed


All this eating is tough work, better have a rest

All these were taken with the Nikon D700 with grip, 200-400 VR, VR on, auto ISO (great feature of D700/D3 with min shutter). I can't remember if these were handheld or on a tripod as depending on the situation, I would switch from the tripod to handheld. The photos have not had much post processing done. Looking at the black bear photo again, I will probably tone down the bottom tree.

FYI, do not attempt this with bears in other parts of Canada The bears here are in a very remote part of Canada where they don't get much human interaction so they are not worried by humans, we don't compete withe them for the salmon, they don't consider humans food and they are extremely well fed with the streams full of spawning salmon.

I'll post some grizzly bear photos later on.

Cheers,

André

[marcotrov]

Great images Radar. I envy your trip. A dream location and working with a dream lens The second image really seems contradictory in that you have a white bear(albeit albino) in a forested setting instead of an icescape. Great contrast. It would have been magic to get both bears together for real contrast.
cheers
marco

[zafra52]

André, you did a fine job taking these photographs; they are excellent.

[surenj]

The second picture can easily be on the cover of National Geographic! beautiful composition and tones. wow!

[radar]

Thank you for the comments, much appreciated.

The second image really seems contradictory in that you have a white bear(albeit albino) in a forested setting instead of an icescape.

Marco, it does make for an amazing setting. Note that the white bear is not an albino, it is cause by a gene in the kermode bear sub-species.
More info on the Spirit Bear: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermode_bear

A couple of other photographers on the trip had a 600mm VR, now that is one serious piece of glass. I certainly was extremely happy with the 200-400, coupled with the D700 with grip, great combo.

André
(edit: add wikipedia link)

[aim54x]

Great shots, this is really a once in a lifetime trip and you have brought back some images that really make it seem worth it. The Spirit bear is simply stunning. Great colours and composition.

i look forward to seeing more photos from this trip.

[biggerry]

André, these are very nice and its great to see these animals in their natural environment - your post was a good read and I learnt soemthing new

The last image has got me puzzled (in a good way), its purely a scale thing, the tree the bear is sitting on is so damn huge it makes the bear, which I imagine would be the height of a human when standing, look very small and almost cub like! It also looks liek he/she is scratching on the dead tree branch...

top stuff...

[radar]

Thanks Cameron and Gerry.

Gerry, as for the size of the tree, it was a very large tree that had fallen while back. The trees in this part of the world get quite large, probably was a redwood cedar. Also this was a particularly small female black bear. She possibly may not have been fully grown yet but she was totally independent. Also, it isn't scratching, just having a relax. There may have been bigger bears in the creek at the time so she was just waiting her turn.

We didn't see any aggression from any of the bears towards any other bears. However, they all seemed to know where they stood in the hierarchy. If a more dominant bear would show up, the smaller ones would move out of the creek. In this area, we saw about a dozen distinct individuals, three of them being different spirit bears.

cheers,

André

[Glen]

Andre really nice images and you must run far faster than I do! Great story accompanying your images.

[Killakoala]

Great use of depth of field on the first image. It really makes the bear stand out. Three great images

[big pix]

great series...... the location and natural light adds to the magic of this series and wanting to see more

[Alpha_7]

Wow Andre these are incredible, and I can wait to see more. How did you find the 200-400 ? Or is that a very stupid question, I'm sure you loved it. Happy to hear you were handholding and using a tripod, gives you the extra flexibility.
Bring on the Grizzlys!

[MATT]

Thanks for sharing these they are great shots..

MATT

[ATJ]

Stunning shots, André. You should be very proud of them. I like the separation of the bears from the background in the first and the last and I agree the 2nd could easily grace the cover of National Geographic.