Brown Bear Photography in Peril – Lake Clark National Park’s Coastal Management Plan
I recently learned of Lake Clark National Park’s Coastal Management Plan, which will drastically change brown bear viewing opportunities along the Lake Clark National Park coast. The Project’s Purpose, as stated in their recent newsletter, is “to improve visitor experiences at key coastal sites while protecting resources and responding to changing conditions.” In general, this all sounds innocuous, but like all new ideas, there are always pros and cons.
Silver Salmon’s Sustainable Bear Viewing
My good friends and owners of Silver Salmon Lodge, Dave, Joanne, and Oliver Coray have lived in the area and have been bringing people to their home for over 40 years. The Lake Clark coast and its prosperity are essential factors in their ability to make a living. Without a healthy ecosystem, they have nothing to offer their guests.
But equally important is their concern for the land and the animals they’ve lived with for over four decades. Nobody lives in remote Alaska without a true love for the land and animals they depend on.
As residents living in the area the entire season, they observe the daily events such as the dynamic coastal tides, weather, bear movements and their tolerance to people, razor clam health, salmon returns, and interactions with other CUA operators. They make recommendations for change when it’s needed but also resist change when it is superfluous, costly, and unnecessary.
Park Ideas I and Silver Salmon Lodge Fully Support
- Commercial Use Authorization (CUA) holders adhere to best bear viewing practices and provide better communication between groups.
- Monitoring cultural resource sites.
- Increase aviation safety by using aircraft tracking systems and aviation reporting & facilitate conversations among pilots about best practices in the area.
- Increase the use of indigenous place names.
- Work with CUA operators to identify solutions managing the number of groups viewing bears at one time.
- Improve the creek crossing, adding fill or gravel on both sides along the banks.
Park Proposals I and Silver Salmon Lodge Do Not Support
Building Bear Viewing Platforms
This is not a viable solution because bears in the Silver Salmon area range far and wide. They often move between many food-viable ecosystems that include the salt sedge meadows, berry patches, razor clam beds at low tide, and fishing for salmon later in the summer. Platforms work in other areas, such as Brooks Falls, because the bears are concentrated in one area, catching fish as they scale the waterfalls. The Silver Salmon bears are more mobile, roaming at will, and would certainly leave the dedicated areas where costly and hard-to-maintain viewing platforms are placed. The benefit of the Silver Salmon Creek area is that visitors can move along the edges of the habitat bears are using. The trail system allows viewing at the edges of where the bears spend most of their time. It’s as if visitors are looking in from the outside, giving the public the ability to stay out of the way as the bears live out their daily lives.
Build Fishing Platforms
The fishing platform is a bad idea since the stream is so dynamic and heavily affected by tides as well as changes due to storms and weather patterns impossible to predict. Within a few years, the fishing platform could easily be left either totally dry and isolated from the creek or underwater, where a raging outgoing tide would destroy it. It also would create a negative visual effect for visitors seeking to experience a remote wilderness location.
Greater Management or Restriction of Four Wheeler/ATV Use
ATVs are essential for accessing different parts of the 5-mile-long coastline at Silver Salmon Creek. They are vital to not only moving guests to various points to observe wildlife but also for support and maintenance of the entire lodge program, such as accessing charter boats and transporting food and supplies. The local subset of bears have learned long ago that ATVs are not a threat to them. Official approval for use of ATVs along designated trails was authorized in 2006, at which time 8 miles were relinquished for use, and only 3 miles were retained. CUA operators in the area would be happy to engage in active trail maintenance to keep trails viable and healthy. Many visitors to the lodges are less ambulatory and require the assistance of guides and ATVs to maximize their experience in this area of Lake Clark National Park.
Close Salt Meadows to Protect Habitat
This would eliminate large portions of wildlife viewing areas from the visiting public. If a smaller isolated area needs re-generation, we’d be supportive of identifying it and seeking appropriate solutions. However, most bear viewing in the salt meadows is done from the trail that skirts the edge of the habitat. Almost none of the trails run directly through salt meadow habitat.
Establishing a distance requirement between visitors and wildlife
This is highly impractical in the Silver Salmon Creek area due to the ranging and roaming nature of the bears and the various in-holders in the area, including park rangers, who need to access different parts of the salt meadows. With a 40-year history of no physical contact between bears and people (one smaller lodge in the area had a “bite” incident in 2013 from a bear that had been fed as a cub by a now-deceased in-holder), trained guides, and adherence to “best viewing practices”, Silver Salmon Creek has enjoyed the capacity to move into the habitat of the bears, with bears often curiously approaching people. The behavior of “caching,” where a female with cubs moves into proximity to humans, has been witnessed numerous times at Silver Salmon. This is behavior well documented in other areas where brown bears are more trusting of humans than other bears.
Partner with Alaska Marine Exchange to Monitor Emergent Vessel Visitation
I see no benefit to this requirement. Boat operators are licensed captains who know how to manage their vessels in tidal and coastal conditions. A non-profit agency’s oversight is not necessary to monitor vessel movements and decisions. This would create tremendous red tape, bureaucracy and added confusion.
The Biggest Danger to The Park, The Johnson Tract Mine, Wasn’t Even Mentioned
The Johnson Tract mine is on track to become a reality and the Park’s proposal doesn’t even mention it. The land within the Park the mine will be developed on is a legal in-holding 12 miles up Johnson River which is just a mile or so north of Silver Salmon Lodge.
It was originally carved out of Lake Clark NP and retained by a regional Native corporation, Cook Inlet Regional, Inc. (CIRI). In the agreement with CIRI, the Park Service gave them the right to access tidewater (the ocean) to transport ore.
In other words, they guaranteed CIRI a place along the coast to build massive docks and a deep water port for the gargantuan ore boats needed to transport the gold out. The mine is currently in the advanced exploratory stage spearheaded by HighGold Mining.
One of two routes being considered for building a road, to get the gold to the coast, is Johnson River Valley. Building a road in the Johnson Valley would be devastating and could be responsible for destroying sensitive brown bear habitat, salmon, and char spawning grounds and eliminating the National Park value that visitors expect in our National Parks. This project should be stopped due to its threat to wildlife within the Park as well as the dangers outside the Park to the Cook Inlet beluga whale. One option to stop the project would be a buy-out of the mine from the owners, Cook Inlet Region (CIRI).
One other issue I have seen become increasingly problematic over my 20 years of visiting Silver Salmon Lodge is the daily air traffic, catering to day-bear viewers. Controlling this ongoing and increasing traffic would be a major step forward in reducing the number of people that the Park Service feels is a threat to the Park’s mission.
How You Can Provide Input on This Plan
Visit this website to express your thoughts about this plan. Feel free to copy the information I’ve provided. Any way you can make it your own is more impactful. The deadline for comments is May 2, 2024. Get your comments in TODAY!
Joel KleinerOn Apr. 13th, 2024
This is sad, terrible and disgusting. I’ve visited Lake Clark many times. I’ve fished and taken hundreds of photos. At no time did we disturb the bears or any wildlife. What’s being proposed is viable. As long as guides mind the people that come to fish and photograph the wildlife maintain their “common sense” distance, the bears and wildlife are fine.