november 2016 | by kathy hocker
You are hungry. The scent of fresh salmon saturates the air, pulls you down the riverbank. There are many humans standing in the river, lined up and waving thin sticks in the air—but you’ve learned not to fear them; you just walk on by.
The salmon here are fast and strong—hard to catch. But just downstream, three fat fish lie dead, gleaming in the shallows. The nearest human is far away, across the river—so you take a chance. The human shouts as you move in and pick up a fish. To your surprise, the other two fish come along as well—they’re tied together! Dragging your prize into the bushes, you ignore the shouting humans; you’ve learned not to fear them. In fact, you’ve now learned that humans provide food: you just need to watch for them to leave their fish and walk away.
Later this summer, you will startle a human into dropping a backpack, and inside it you will find delicious things. Next summer, you will teach your cub to take fish and food from humans.
The summer after that, you will be shot.
Each summer, tens of thousands of people descend on a tiny stretch of Alaska’s Russian River to fish for red (sockeye) salmon. The anglers create fish waste (filleted carcasses), which attracts bears.
The US Forest Service, which manages the site, has issued special orders to help reduce fish waste and protect people and bears. But it can be hard to get those rules across to anglers. Eager to get to the river NOW, they tend to rush past the regulation posting boards. The messages are lost, and the dangerous cycle of "feeding" the bears continues.
Sea Reach’s task at the Russian River is to help create interpretation that "fish blinders" can’t filter out—to deliver those critical messages so all visitors arrive at the river prepared. It’s challenge! But it’s a task that will help keep people—and bears—safer.