Bears attracted to spawning salmon attract tourists to Tahoe's Taylor Creek (LA Times) [View all]

[petronius]

This was pretty cool: I knew there are (non-native) salmon in Tahoe, but I didn't know they had such a well-developed spawn or that the bears would fish for them. Sort of like our very own Alaska-lite...

Under a golden canopy of quaking aspen, red Kokanee salmon swim up Taylor Creek on the south edge of Lake Tahoe to spawn just as their larger cousins do in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. In their wake come black bears, merganser ducks and other predators seeking to feed on the passing horde, which is estimated at up to 50,000. At times, it seems as if you could almost walk across the 2-mile-long creek on the backs of the colorful fish. Yet this annual October ritual of nature remains one of Lake Tahoe's better kept secrets.

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"The number of fishing bears has been increasing slowly," said Jean Norman, a U.S. Forest Service veteran who leads walking tours out of the visitor center near Taylor Creek. "It took time for the bears to figure out that the salmon are a food source. Actually, the spawning fish taste bad. So the bears grab the salmon and eat the roe but not the flesh. One by one they figure it out and keep the good-tasting eggs while rejecting the rest."

Interestingly, only the female bears are successful at catching the salmon, and they teach their cubs to fish. It is funny to watch a male bear in the creek splashing around trying to catch a fish, finally giving up in disgust.

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http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-salmon-20131013,0,2724660.story