"SHE is a massive and well-fed mama bear," says Ingo Arndt, the award-winning German photographer who captured this powerful beast in a moment of curious investigation. The female lives on the south coast of Alaska in Lake Clark National Park. She is one of hundreds of resident brown bears (Ursus arctos ) in these parts.
Coastal brown bears are huge, fearsome creatures with a mean bite and long sharp claws that they use for digging clams out of the mud, among other things. The mild climate and rich ecosystem lets them grow to 750 kilogrammes. They graze on protein-rich sedges, hunt salmon, and are often seen ambling across the mudflats, with noses skimming the sand, hot on the scent of a buried clam. They eat razor clams, soft-shell clams, cockles and the Alaska surf clam. Some carefully pry the shells open with their hooked claws. Others simply crush them beneath their powerful paws and spit out the shattered bits, or swallow the shells and excrete them later.
Given the bears' size, you can forgive Arndt for sending his camera out on its own to capture this image while he retreated to a safe distance. He mounted it on a custom-made, remote-controlled, four-wheel buggy and left it on a section of beach the bears liked to frequent. After a time, this mama strolled over. Arndt snapped the shot when she was just 50 centimetres away from his lens.
Arndt's photographs feature in his latest book, Coastal Bears.
This article appeared in print under the headline "You lookin' at me?"
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