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Disney Bears: A 1-Mile Walk to Feast on Food

A mile might not seem like much to travel to get food in your town, but for Bears it can be an arduous journey.

This post is sponsored by Disneynature Bears, in theaters April 18. 

Think about traveling 1 mile in your town. 

For the most part, it's easy, or at least manageable. But for the brown bears in Alaska, a 1-mile stretch is a fight for food and survival each year. 

The bears travel from the meadows near Hallo Bay in Alaska to the mouth of a river 1 mile away to feast on salmon each year.

The Katmai National Park and Preserve is home to about 2,000 brown bears, which are attracted there by the great number of salmon. In Disneynature's new movie Bears, in theaters April 18, you can see the Bears take this journey. 

While shooting the movie, filmmakers observed a variety of fishing techniques while on location in Katmai.

  • Some bears opted for the belly flop—sloshing through the river or creek, leaping and landing—belly first—on an unsuspecting salmon.
  • Many tried the traditional approach of coordinating a few good claws with their snapping jaws to snag a fish.
  • When fishing at the falls, bears picked prime spots to position themselves as salmon were leaping out of the water—their own journey interrupted by the waiting jaws of a hungry bear.
  • A few abandoned fishing altogether and just stole fish from unsuspecting bears.
TELL US: Do you travel farther than the closest grocery in town for the food you want?


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