People and Bears Enjoy Coexistence in Alaska Game Sanctuary : Environment: McNeil River includes the largest concentration of the species at a single site anywhere. Coveted permits to visit the remote camp are distributed by lottery every April.

Deep in the wilderness, we stood atop a wind-swept bluff, surrounded by 34 brown bears. Big, lumbering boars. Protective sows with their cubs.

Every Alaska hiker’s worst nightmare.

But as long as we stayed on that little bluff overlooking McNeil River Falls, the bears tolerated our intrusion on their feeding grounds. In surprisingly little time, our fear was transformed into pure wonder.

Bears were everywhere we turned at the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary. The falls are home to the world’s largest known concentration of bears at a single site in the wild.

It’s a wild and woolly show at the sanctuary, 200 miles southwest of Anchorage and just north of Katmai National Park on the Alaska Peninsula. And tickets are hard to come by.

The sanctuary is the best known and most restricted of Alaska’s bear-viewing sites. The coveted permits to visit the remote camp and nearby falls are distributed by lottery every April.

This year the state received more than 2,000 applications from around the world for 185 permits for the June-through-August viewing season.

The bears come here each summer to feast on a run of chum salmon. And, as with people, their fishing techniques and success vary.

Most of the bears perch themselves on large rocks or stand in the glacier-fed river, scanning the swirling water for easy prey. Occasionally one snags a salmon with its mouth as the fish tries to jump the rapids.

More often a bear suddenly dives into the water and traps a fish with its front paws against the rocks. Grabbing the wriggling chum in its saw-toothed jaw, the bear crawls out of the river and sets about dining.

One bear--a guide named her Teddy--regularly came up the path next to our bluff, fell into the grass and ate her catch as we tourists, just a few feet away, fired our cameras like automatic weapons.

The bears frequently charged and intimidated one another for control of the best fishing spots. Salmon thievery was rampant. Occasionally two boars would rise on their hind legs for a brief fight over a spot or a fish, their deep growls piercing the river’s din.

Wildlife photographers consider it the premiere location to get close-up shots of brown bears in the wild. Browns--the coastal equivalent of grizzlies--normally are loners. But more than 80 have been counted congregating at the falls.

The “falls” actually are a series of rapids formed by large rocks about a mile up from the river’s mouth at Kamishak Bay. The calico-colored chums gather in pools between the rapids. Together the rocks and bears pose the major obstacle to the chums’ upstream migration to spawn.

“It’s a fish’s nightmare,” said Larry Aumiller, McNeil’s veteran guide-biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

The bears come from miles away to spend the long summer days fishing, eating, sleeping and mating in the tall grasses above the banks. The fish fatten the bears for winter hibernation. Some increase their weight by as much as 50%. The biggest can get up to 1,200 pounds.

By season’s end, the satiated bears can get downright picky. Feeling for a salmon’s egg sack, some bears will keep only the females, eat the raw caviar and leave the carcasses for the birds. Male salmon are just dropped back in the water.

The dominant bears have their pick of the best fishing spots at the upper rapids, while younger and less aggressive ones position themselves downstream.

During our visit, a group of gangling juvenile bears played like children in the large pool below the bluff, lunging through the air to perform belly-flops and diving underwater to chase schools of salmon in circles.

Aumiller, 49, knows these bears better than anyone. He has given them names, such as “Motley” and “Scratchbutt,” and can recite their distinct personalities, traits and rank in the social order.

For 18 years, this soft-spoken biologist has managed the sanctuary and, what’s more significant, the visitors.

“The real value of McNeil is it shows that bears and people can live together,” he said.

To get to McNeil River, most visitors drive or fly to Anchorage and charter a float plane to travel the 100 miles across Cook Inlet to the camp. A maximum 100 pounds of gear is allowed.

Hip boots are mandatory for crossing the creek on the way to the viewing area. Food, a weatherproof tent, sleeping bag and cooking equipment and utensils also must be brought in.

There are no concessions or modern amenities at the camp.

The camp includes a small cook house, where all the food is stored and meals are eaten. Freeze-dried food is lighter and easier to pack, and visitors are urged to bring extra in case they get weathered in.

The weather at McNeil often is windy, rainy and cold in summer. Rain gear, a warm jacket and a day pack to carry extra clothes and camera gear are highly recommended. Mosquitoes also can be a problem.

Aumiller spends much of his time treating a pervasive human affliction that he terms “bearanoia.”

“It’s normal, innate, natural behavior to be fearful of big furry things that can hurt you,” he said. “But bears are much more willing to get along with us than we are to get along with them.”

Part of the problem is bad press, Aumiller said. About the only time bears make news is when they maul or kill someone, and those horrific stories stick in people’s minds.

Aumiller proudly notes that there has been no attack on a human and no bear shot in defense of life at McNeil River since the state began requiring permits and guiding visitors to the falls in 1973.

That does not mean McNeil’s bears are tame.

If provoked or threatened, they could easily maim or kill a person. What makes them different from most wild bears is that they are used to humans and don’t consider them a threat or food source, Aumiller said.

Visitors also are comforted by the fact that brown bears, though unpredictable, are not known to attack groups of more than a few people. Ten permit holders at a time are escorted to the falls.

Aumiller or another guide armed with a 12-gauge shotgun leads the group on the two-mile hike from the camp to the bluff. The relatively easy trail crosses sedge flats, thigh-deep Mikfik Creek and a grassy, alpine meadow flecked with wild iris, lupine and cow parsley.

While walking through the tall grass, the guide occasionally claps his hands and shouts, “Hey, bear! Whoa, bear!” That’s intended to alert any napping bears to the group’s presence and avoid surprise confrontations.

When the group reaches the bluff, it is instructed on the do’s and don’ts of bear viewing: Stay on the gravel bluff. When a bear approaches, stand your ground. Don’t scream. And, of course, don’t feed the animals.

Problems can arise when visitors get too relaxed. The permits are for four consecutive days, and by the second or third day some folks have to be reminded that this isn’t a petting zoo.

The state declared McNeil River a sanctuary in 1967. But by the early 1970s, when access to the falls was still unrestricted, photographers often outnumbered bears. People put themselves in danger and the bears began to avoid the area.

“One photographer actually built a blind on the rock in the middle of the river, if you can believe that,” Aumiller said.

The state began restricting access and imposed some common-sense rules. Today the bears’ welfare comes first in what is considered a model wildlife-viewing program.