Thank's for telling us how you got these shots.

An incredible experience, Tony! As you said, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and you certainly made the most of it with those outstanding images. That the Griz knew you were there but chose Rack of Lamb instead of photographer was good fortune.

Fantastic series!

Best regards,

Dick:)

Looks like Jim just cant stay far enough away. I saw him last ween when he was up here in my neck of the woods but was run out of town by the local biologist for getting to close to bears, again . . .

Close encounters

By BRODIE FARQUHAR
Star-Tribune correspondent Friday, May 25, 2007


A nature writer and photographer identified Thursday as the victim of a Wednesday grizzly bear mauling in Yellowstone National Park has had previous run-ins with bears.

Jim Cole of Bozeman, Mont., survived a similar encounter in Glacier National Park in 1993. And he was charged with and later acquitted of approaching within 20 yards of a grizzly bear family in 2004 in the Gardner Hole area of Yellowstone.

Cole, 57, has published books on the lives of grizzly bears in Montana, Wyoming and Alaska. His mauling this week has renewed discussion about the dangers faced by wildlife photographers in grizzly country.

Cole told rangers he was attacked by a sow with a cub while taking photographs along Trout Creek in Hayden Valley. Wildlife biologists consider that area northwest of Fishing Bridge as prime grizzly bear country.Despite severe injuries to his face, Cole managed to walk two or three miles to the Grand Loop Road, where he was discovered by visitors about 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Cole remains hospitalized at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls, where he was listed in fair condition Thursday. A hospital spokeswoman said Coles family didnt expect him to be able to talk to the news media until Tuesday.

Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said the mauling investigation continues, but is difficult in that there were no witnesses other than Cole. Park biologists have not been able to determine which grizzly bear sow was involved in the incident, he said.

When Cole was charged with getting too close to grizzlies in 2004, news reports indicated that prosecutors wanted to ban him from the park for a year, plus impose a fine and a suspended jail sentence. But he was acquitted by a magistrate after arguing that he had come upon the bears inadvertently.

Cole walked out of the backcountry and took himself to the hospital after being injured by a grizzly in Glacier National Park in September 1993. He is the author of two books: "Lives of Grizzlies, Montana and Wyoming," and "Lives of Grizzlies, Alaska."

This is the first time a person has been injured by a bear in Yellowstone since September 2005. There have been eight minor bear-caused human injuries in the park since 2000. The last bear-caused human fatality in Yellowstone occurred in 1986, when Bill Tesinky, a Montana mechanic and budding wildlife photographer, was killed and eaten by a bear.

You can do it all right and still wind up in a wrong situation, said Jeff Vanuga, a Dubois-based wildlife photographer whose work has been published worldwide in magazines and major advertising campaigns. Theres no cookbook, no template.

For starters, Vanuga said, you need long lenses when photographing wildlife. He uses a 500 mm F4 lens. Secondly, he said, any animal can be dangerous, and that certainly counts for grizzly bears.

There are relatively safe places to shoot bears, like Alaska, he said, but Wyoming and Yellowstone bears cannot be considered safe, even if they appear to be fairly tolerant of people.

Vanuga confines his photography of grizzly bears to roadside bears, and even then he uses long lenses and never gets too close. He doesnt hike into the backcountry anymore for grizzly bear photos, but if he did, hed go in a group of three or four people.

Jim Peaco, the staff photographer for Yellowstone, said hormones, babies and food are the three things a wildlife photographer doesnt want to mess with. Male elk in the rut are dangerous, he said, as are mothers defending their young (elk, bears and other animals), while bears can be quite testy defending a carcass.

Peaco said his first instinct upon spotting a bear in the backcountry is to retreat, and then think about photography. He uses a 600 mm lens.

Peaco rigorously follows Yellowstone rules about staying at least 100 yards away from bears.

Theyre so big and quick, he said.

* Last we knew: A man was mauled by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday.

* The latest: He was identified Thursday as wildlife photographer Jim Cole, who survived a similar encounter in 1993.

* What's next: Park officials will continue to investigate the incident while Cole recovers in and Idaho hospital.

The wife and I arrived in Yellowstone Saturday May 19th and saw a sow gizzly with cub by the Fishing Bridge area, we stayed in our car as her and the cub crossed the road no more than 30 yards in front of us, that was scary enough as she was huge. My wife has a picture of her looking back at us with the cub in tow as they passed.
We had just left heading to Washington the day the mauling took place, my step son told us about it when we called him later that night. He works for the parks service in Yellowstone and from what he heard it looks like a case of being to close for comfort to a cub and momma didn't like it.

Hi FinalShot,

the first image is a very interessting shot, but you have a lot of negative space at the top and right site.
On the second image i would set the sharping to the cub not to the mother, because i can imagine that the grizzly was more interessted at the cub then at the mother. from the photographical idea the second one is very cool.

Regards, ankimo

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www.ankimo.net - nature photographers website
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thanks ankimo for your comments, I think youre correct. As you can imagine, photographing grizzlies (lower 48 bears) in the wild can be quite a challenge. Given the chance to get closer, without compromising the bears saftey or my own, I would have done a lot of things different with all those shots. That cub snow shot - in full sunlight - is a fairly deep crop into a 10 mp image. I would have loved to be closer but just could not risk the bears saftey. that kind of contrast at that distance, i'm lucky to have come home with anything even marginally worth looking at.

Thanks for looking and for your comments.

What do you think of these? All three have been published in widely circulated periodicals or calenders, or both. . .

Hey Tony,

Glad to see you posted that article about Jim Cole. It certainly helps bring the realities of how important it is to respect the critters we are photographing.

"Given the chance to get closer, without compromising the bears saftey or my own, I would have done a lot of things different with all those shots. "

What do you think you would have done differently?

James