Brown/Chocolate COLORED Black Bears on the Kenai Peninsula...Sightings

[AGL4now]

Request your sightings of Brown/Cinnamon/Chocolate colored "Black Bears" on the Kenai Peninsula (Only). Need not be current year sightings. Request rough general area where bear was seen, and when seen. Thank You.

[0321Tony]

Last year I was having a bear sealed and asked Lary Lewis about color phase bears on the Kenai and he told me that the only one he has ever sealed came out of Port dick.

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[Jrchambers]

I have spent many springs and falls glassing mountains and baiting all over the kenai and prince William and have seen probably thousands of bears. Not a single one that I could confirm was color phase and not just a small brown due to distance. Really there was only one that I thought might be one and it was not on the peninsula.

[4merguide]

I believe I mentioned this on another thread some time ago. Awhile back we moved into a different house. I have my beautiful little 5' sow black bear hide hanging over a place where the sun will lightly hit it now for just a little while. One day while coming out of my bedroom I happened to glance over at the hide with the sun on it. I saw what I can only describe as an almost dark coffee colored sheen coming off it. I picked it up and examined it closely as I had never noticed it before in the other house and always just thought it black. That hide sits next to the 6'4" boar I killed a couple years ago. With the sun on it as well there is no comparison to the color.....the boar is black as black can be, but the sow is definitely a real deep dark chocolate coffee color. By all accounts it looks black but it's not. Both bears I killed on the Kenai. The sow was in the Cooper Landing area.

[elim]

About 7 years ago a buddy of mine and I ran out of Homer to China Poot Bay and he anchored a chocolate black bear. The taxidermist did not believe we got it out of Homer. He said there are no chocolate bears around.

[AK A's Fan]

Saw a small, beautiful cinnamon colored bear about halfway between Anchorage and Girdwood last year on the cliffs.

[sh]

I have only seen one off color bear, near summit lake 10 or more years ago. was kinda cinnamon color, a real beauty. that's out of probably over 600-800 bears I have seen in over 30 years down there.

[4merguide]

I have only seen one off color bear, near summit lake 10 or more years ago. was kinda cinnamon color, a real beauty. that's out of probably over 600-800 bears I have seen in over 30 years down there.

Wow....600-800 bears!!! You really got around...!!!

[sh]

yea, I do.

[shimano 33]

I guess sighting (around) 23 bears a year is possible. I personally am happy with a # much lower than that thoughroud:

[sh]

One year ( 2001 i think) , we actually kept count of every bear we saw , cubs and all. We stopped counting at 120 or so. That was the peninsula and as far north as denali state park. Since then i have noticed a large drop in black bears on the peninsula, and more browns. With good optics, and looking in the right places it is easily possible to see lots of them as long as they are in reasonable numbers.
The one i really wanted to nail was a coal black griz up in the interior, but he was out in the middle of an area unapproachable on foot.

[4merguide]

The one i really wanted to nail was a coal black griz up in the interior,

That's funny you say that.... Once when I was guiding a moose hunter over in the Mulchatna drainage, I watched as a small bull came crashing up out of some alders onto the ridge we were on. I said to my hunter, "It looks like something was after him." Sure nuff a few minutes later a beautiful, almost dark charcoal colored grizz came out behind him. It was probably the most beautiful bear I've seen yet.....

[L. G.]

There's been a sow with cinnamon cubs hanging out at 16 mile Glacier Hwy (about 1 mile from my place) all spring. They are yearlings. She had a new black cub that I haven't seen in a while. They are regulars on the highway and love eating dandilions.

[4merguide]

There's been a sow with cinnamon cubs hanging out at 16 mile Glacier Hwy (about 1 mile from my place) all spring. They are yearlings. She had a new black cub that I haven't seen in a while. They are regulars on the highway and love eating dandilions.

Outstanding picture...!!! :topjob: Did you take it?

[L. G.]

Outstanding picture...!!! :topjob: Did you take it?

Negative. I wish, though . . .

Folks are parking, getting out of their cars, approaching the bears thinking they are in Jellystone.