“The beauty of the Bear Coast area is that we don’t have to restore anything, it’s here, we just have to protect it.” – Steve McClain, World Wildlife Fund
With Earth Day arising on April 22nd, Natural Habitat Adventures has unveiled a brand-new brief movie showcasing the brown bears of Alaska.
Entitled The Bear Coast: An Alaska Conservation Story, the movie focuses on a big swath of coastal land on the north finish of the Alaska Peninsula, comprised of the coastlines of Katmai National Park, Lake Clark National Park (the situation of Nat Hab’s Alaska Bear Camp), and McNeil River State Game Sanctuary — an space often known as “the best bear habitat in the world.”
Directed by Andrew Ackerman, the movie options interviews with a bunch of passionate Alaskans, together with Steve McClain, Managing Director, WWF US Arctic Program; Alexanna Salmon, Bristol Bay Program Director, Alaska Venture Fund; Sue Mauger, Science & Executive Director, Cook Inletkeeper; and Drew Hamilton, a longtime, well-known Alaska bear viewing information (who has labored with Nat Hab for a few years), who can be board president of Friends of McNeil River, an necessary conservation group on the Bear Coast. In this function, Drew was instrumental in main a lot of the profitable opposition to the Pebble Mine venture proposed for this area that might have had a devastating influence on the bears and their habitat, particularly the Bristol Bay watershed, location of the world’s largest sockeye salmon run.
Ninety-five % of brown bears within the United States reside in Alaska, and the world generally known as the Bear Coast – a very wild place with out roads, cities, campgrounds, or massive populations of individuals residing close by – helps a wholesome and steady inhabitants of coastal brown bears due to the super salmon runs of the Bristol Bay watershed and the varied estuaries, sedges, and tidal flats discovered right here that present every thing a bear must eat in a single place.
But the destiny of that habitat rests in human palms. “We have an incredible power, whether we recognize it or not,” stated Hamilton within the movie. “In order to have a world where bears exist, we need to make a conscious decision to have bears in the world.”
“Storytelling is an important piece of natural history travel,” continued McClain. “The more people who come and see a wild place, and see an intact place, the more advocates we have for protecting these places.”