In the far north-east of the Eurasian continent stretches a land about 470,000 square kilometers in size: the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Only three hundred thousand people inhabit this Russian region where the frozen tundra, the coniferous forests, mountains and volcanoes dominate a landscape which, in some places, has never been trodden by man. A wild place far from civilization, far from everything.
One people rule this immense land, and they have just woken up from a long sleep: the brown bears.
The start of the melt announces the resurgence of life in Kamchatka.
So, from the mountains and the forests where they took shelter, from the valleys, from everywhere, the bears walk for days, following the trails left by generations of bears before them, heading to the best lake for fishing: Kurile Lake.
Millions of salmon come to Kurile Lake from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in its fertile waters which will provide their young with abundant food. During summer Kurile Lake contains the densest assembly of bears to be found anywhere on Earth. All hungry for salmon.
My name is Bartolomeo Bove. As a wildlife videographer I traveled to this remote and pristine region and I spent 5 days on the lake filming the Kamchatka brown bears: the largest brown bears of Eurasia, excellent swimmers and sharp predators.
When you observe a group of bears and spend quite some time among them you start telling them apart. Each one has its own behavior, each one its own appearance. But make no mistake, Kamchatka brown bears are apex predators weighing up to 900 lb (400 kg), maybe even more, and before going to sleep for winter they need to be fed continuously. They have one objective in summer: to stuff themselves with salmon, as many as 50 a day, and stock as much fat as possible to survive the long winter.
Even if they are tolerant of human presence, people always need to be careful and observe them from a safe distance. Bears can change their behavior in an instant. They can be quietly and peacefully sunbathing and in a split second they can run quite long distances.
Bears are cannibalistic and quite often adult males eat cubs. When an adult male is in the surroundings females use to bring the cubs near people because they know that humans would not harm them. This mama bear trusts humans so much that she came twice, in 2 different days, to a spot close to us to breastfeed her cubs.
Bears don’t go into a real hibernation. In the colder months they retire to a den (which the Russians call a berloga) and fall asleep. Females give birth to cubs while sleeping. In the Kurile Lake area, many of them swim up to some islets located inside the lake to give birth away from the attacks of adult males.
The Kamchatka bear cubs stay with their mother until they reach the age of 2. The cubs born in the Kurile Lake area stay with their mother until they are 3 years old, as there is abundance of food and females can afford it. Scientists observed that the mother bear can decide how many cubs she will give birth to depending on the availability of food sources.
The cubs play carefree and mama bear takes care of them. She will nourish and protect them for a few more years, until they inevitably separate and have to fend for themselves.
It is the law of nature. One day, they will have to accept their destiny: to live alone, away from the other bears, away from their family.
This is the life of Kamchatka bears. It’s the cycle of life that repeats itself. And as long as the salmon continue to make their long journey, the bears will fiercely rule this wild land still untouched by man.
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