Every fall, something remarkable happens in the Bella Coola Valley.
Pacific salmon return to the Atnarko and Bella Coola river systems. Grizzly bears follow them to the rivers. And people travel from around the world for the opportunity to see those bears feeding in their natural environment.
For those of us involved in bear viewing tourism, however, there is an important question behind the experience:
What effect are all of us having on the bears?
It’s an important question—and one that researchers have been studying right here in the Bella Coola Valley.
Research led by Kate Field of the University of Victoria and Raincoast Conservation Foundation, working with Nuxalk Fisheries and Wildlife, BC Parks and other researchers, has examined how grizzly bears respond to ecotourism along the Atnarko River.
The project has produced some fascinating findings.
Perhaps most importantly, the research suggests that responsible bear viewing and grizzly conservation don’t necessarily have to be opposing ideas.
But it also reminds us that how we view bears matters.
Studying Bears Where We View Them
What makes this research particularly interesting to us at Firvale Wilderness Camp is its location.
The research wasn’t conducted in Alaska, Yellowstone or another ecosystem that we are trying to compare to Bella Coola.
It was conducted right here in the Atnarko River corridor in Nuxalk Territory, including areas used for both land-based and boat-based bear viewing.
This is the same general ecosystem our guests experience during Firvale’s Grizzly Bear Adventure.
Researchers studied bears along the river during the summer and fall salmon season between 2019 and 2021.
They used several approaches, including remote cameras, behavioural observations and non-invasive genetic sampling from bear hair.
Together, those methods allowed researchers to ask some important questions.
Do bears avoid areas with tourists?
Does tourism interfere with feeding?
Do different bears respond differently to people?
And perhaps one of the most important questions for people living in the Bella Coola Valley:
Does becoming accustomed to people at bear viewing locations make bears more likely to come into conflict with people later?
Finding #1: Salmon Changes the Entire Picture
One of the clearest lessons from the research is something people who spend time around bears already understand intuitively:
Salmon matter enormously.
Grizzly bears depend heavily on spawning salmon during the period before hibernation.
This is a critical feeding period when bears are trying to accumulate the energy reserves needed to survive winter and, for females, support reproduction.
Field and her colleagues found that the relationship between visitors and bear activity changed depending on salmon abundance.
When salmon were abundant, increasing numbers of visitors were associated with reduced bear activity in the study area.
But something interesting happened when salmon numbers were low.
Bears became more willing to remain in areas with people.
The researchers suggested that when food is limited, bears may have fewer alternatives. The need to feed can outweigh their desire to avoid human activity.
That has an important implication for bear viewing.
The same number of visitors may not have the same effect on bears every year.
A strong salmon year and a poor salmon year can create very different circumstances.
Finding #2: More Bears Around People Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Bears Prefer People
This is an important distinction.
If bears remain around viewing areas while people are present, it would be easy to conclude that the bears simply don’t care about humans.
The research suggests the situation is much more complicated.
When salmon are scarce, bears may tolerate a situation they would otherwise avoid because accessing food becomes more important.
In other words, seeing bears around people doesn’t automatically mean the people aren’t affecting them.
The bear may simply be making a trade-off.
That is one reason responsible bear viewing requires more than simply maintaining a minimum distance.
We also need to think about whether our presence is interfering with a bear’s ability to access food.
Finding #3: Different Bears Respond Differently to People
Not every grizzly bear behaves the same way.
Adult males, females, females with cubs and younger bears can respond differently to human activity.
Field’s research found evidence that subordinate classes of bears were more likely relative to adult males to be detected when visitor numbers were high.
One possible explanation researchers considered is something known as the “human shield” hypothesis.
Large adult male grizzlies can represent a threat to smaller bears and cubs.
If large males are more cautious around people, females with cubs or younger bears may sometimes tolerate human activity because it reduces their chances of encountering dominant males.
It’s a fascinating reminder that when we watch several bears using the same river, we’re also watching a complicated social system.
A mother with cubs may make very different decisions than a large adult male.
Finding #4: Bear Viewing Bears Were NOT More Likely to Become Conflict Bears
This may be the most interesting finding for bear viewing tourism in Bella Coola.
There has long been a reasonable concern surrounding wildlife tourism:
If bears become comfortable seeing people around the river, could they become too comfortable around people elsewhere?
Researchers were able to investigate that question using genetics.
Hair samples collected along the Atnarko River essentially provided genetic fingerprints of individual bears.
Between 2019 and 2021, researchers identified 118 individual grizzly bears through hair sampling.
Of those bears, 34 were detected within the ecotourism zone.
Researchers then compared those genetic identities with samples from bears involved in human-bear conflicts farther down the Bella Coola Valley.
The result was striking.
Only one of the 34 bears detected in the ecotourism area was subsequently associated with conflict during the study period.
Meanwhile, the other 29 conflict bears in the comparison were not detected at the Atnarko sampling sites.
The researchers concluded that grizzly bears detected at ecotourism sites were less likely than predicted by chance to subsequently encounter human conflict under the scenarios they examined.
That challenges the simple assumption that bear viewing automatically habituates bears to people and creates problem bears.
But That Doesn’t Mean Tourism Has No Effect
This distinction is extremely important.
The research does not say:
“Tourism doesn’t affect bears.”
It does.
The camera research demonstrated that bear activity can change in relation to visitor numbers.
Instead, the research paints a more complicated—and much more useful—picture.
Bears respond to people differently depending on food availability, age, sex, social circumstances and probably individual personality.
Well-managed ecotourism can coexist with bears.
But that doesn’t give us permission to stop thinking about our impact.
Quite the opposite.
It gives managers and tourism operators better information for deciding how bear viewing should occur.
Why Predictability May Matter
One particularly interesting idea emerging from the research is the importance of making human activity predictable.
Along the Atnarko River, commercial bear viewing occurs in relatively consistent places and during relatively consistent times.
Guided river floats travel established sections of river.
Viewing areas concentrate people in particular locations.
Professional guides manage how guests behave around wildlife.
For a bear, predictable human activity may be very different from unexpectedly encountering someone walking through the bush.
The researchers specifically identified regulating where, when and how people behave as a potential way to make interactions more predictable for both bears and humans.
This is one of the strongest arguments for professionally managed bear viewing.
A guide’s job isn’t simply to find a bear.
It’s also to manage the people watching it.
Why Low Salmon Years Deserve Extra Attention
Perhaps the most important management recommendation from Field’s research concerns poor salmon returns.
When salmon numbers are low, bears have fewer feeding opportunities.
They may become more willing to tolerate human activity because they need access to the remaining productive fishing locations.
Researchers therefore suggested that managers could consider reducing visitor numbers during periods of low salmon abundance.
That’s an important concept for the future of grizzly bear tourism in Bella Coola.
Responsible tourism shouldn’t necessarily mean establishing one set of rules and using them forever.
Management can respond to what is happening in the ecosystem.
If salmon runs are strong, one approach might be appropriate.
If salmon numbers are unusually poor, additional precautions might be warranted.
That’s what evidence-based wildlife tourism should look like.
What This Means for Firvale Wilderness Camp
Firvale doesn’t operate the commercial river floats ourselves.
Instead, our Grizzly Bear Adventure works with established local bear viewing operators, including Kynoch Adventures, to provide professionally guided river and land-based bear viewing.
That’s intentional.
We believe there’s an enormous difference between simply telling visitors where bears congregate and providing a structured wildlife experience with professional guides.
Our guests have multiple opportunities to experience bear habitat during their stay, including guided land-based viewing and a quiet float down the Atnarko River.
But the objective shouldn’t be:
Get as close to as many bears as possible.
It should be:
Experience wild bears behaving naturally while minimizing our impact on them.
Field’s research reinforces that philosophy.
Why Floating the River Can Be Such an Effective Viewing Experience
One of our favourite ways to experience Bella Coola’s bears is from a raft.
The Atnarko River allows guests to travel quietly through kilometres of bear habitat rather than gathering in one location waiting for a bear to arrive.
But even quiet tourism is still tourism.
The research area specifically included stretches used for both land- and boat-based bear viewing.
That means we shouldn’t assume a raft becomes invisible simply because it doesn’t have an engine.
Bears can still perceive us.
The responsibility remains the same: maintain appropriate distances, avoid interfering with feeding behaviour and follow the direction of experienced guides.
Bear Viewing Should Be About Natural Behaviour
There’s an unfortunate temptation in wildlife tourism to measure the quality of an encounter by distance.
“How close did you get?”
We think that’s the wrong measurement.
A better question is:
What was the bear doing?
A grizzly calmly catching salmon.
A mother teaching cubs how to fish.
A bear walking naturally along the riverbank.
A large male moving between fishing locations.
Those are extraordinary encounters precisely because the bears are behaving like bears.
If our presence causes an animal to stop feeding, repeatedly look toward us or leave an important food source, getting closer hasn’t improved the experience.
We’ve potentially diminished it.
Bear Tourism Can Also Give Wildlife Economic Value While It Is Alive
There is another side to responsible wildlife tourism that goes beyond individual encounters.
Visitors travel to Bella Coola specifically because wild grizzly bears still live here.
Those visitors stay in local accommodations, hire guides, eat in restaurants, purchase fuel, take tours and support local businesses.
That creates an economic reason to maintain healthy wildlife populations and healthy ecosystems.
It also introduces people from around the world to an animal and landscape they may previously have understood only through photographs or documentaries.
None of that means tourism automatically equals conservation.
But properly managed wildlife tourism can help create a community and an economy where living bears and intact habitat have tangible value.
Salmon Conservation Is Bear Conservation
Perhaps the biggest lesson from all of this research isn’t actually about tourists.
It’s about fish.
The relationship between salmon abundance and bear behaviour appears repeatedly in research from the Bella Coola ecosystem.
If we want healthy grizzly bear populations, we need healthy salmon runs.
If we want sustainable bear viewing, we need healthy salmon runs.
And if we want to reduce situations where hungry bears are forced to make difficult decisions about feeding around people, salmon abundance matters again.
The river, salmon, bears, rainforest and people aren’t separate subjects.
They’re parts of the same ecosystem.
A Better Future for Bear Viewing
For us, one of the most encouraging things about Kate Field’s research is simply that it exists.
Bella Coola doesn’t have to rely entirely on research conducted somewhere else to decide how wildlife tourism should operate here.
Researchers, Nuxalk Fisheries and Wildlife, BC Parks, conservation organizations, local knowledge holders and tourism operators have contributed to research taking place directly within this ecosystem.
And the results aren’t simply saying tourism is good or tourism is bad.
They’re giving us something far more valuable:
information that can help us do it better.
The evidence so far suggests that grizzly bear viewing and conservation can coexist in the Bella Coola Valley.
It also tells us that we have a responsibility to pay attention to salmon abundance, visitor numbers, bear behaviour and how people move through important feeding habitat.
For those of us who make a living introducing visitors to these animals, that’s exactly the kind of research we should want.
Because the future of bear viewing in Bella Coola ultimately depends on one thing above everything else:
healthy populations of wild grizzly bears continuing to behave like wild grizzly bears.
And that’s something worth protecting.
If you are looking for a package that aligns with this reached please click the link below:
Review our Grizzly Adventure package
The Research Behind This Article
This article discusses research led by Kate A. Field and collaborators from the University of Victoria, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Nuxalk Fisheries and Wildlife and other research partners.
Two particularly relevant studies are:
“Influence of ecotourism on grizzly bear activity depends on salmon abundance in the Atnarko River corridor, Nuxalk Territory” — published in Conservation Science and Practice.
“Grizzly bears detected at ecotourism sites are less likely than predicted by chance to encounter conflict” — published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology.
A later study, “Integrating spatial and behavioral data provides comprehensive assessment of grizzly bear-ecotourism coexistence in Nuxalk Territory,” further examined the effects of boat- and land-based ecotourism on grizzly behaviour.
We encourage anyone interested in grizzly bears, conservation or responsible wildlife tourism to read the original research.
