The variety of bears that we encountered at Katmai National Park was just staggering. You could tell from watching them: they have distinct personalities. By and away our favorite bear was one that we nicknamed Mickey Mouse Bear.
Mickey Mouse bear looked to be a yearling cub, but mama was nowhere to be seen. By rights she probably should have been teaching him how to fish. Instead, he was going at it alone, and let's face it: he was not a good fisherbear. What he lacked in skill, however, he totally made up for in heart! He made more attempts at salmon than any other bear we saw that day, and even though we all wanted so badly for him to succeed, the fish just weren't swimming his way. During the hour or so we were on the lower viewer platform where he was fishing, there were many times where he perched up on a rock, bounded off across the river, stuck his face in the water, and tried like hell to catch some lunch. But even when he had just stuck his whole head in the water, his ears - oh, those ears - would still be disproportionally huge and fuzzy. In every photo I took of him (and there are probably hundreds) his ears are his most distinctive feature and they just make me want to go up, give him a huge hug, and fuzz up those ears even more.
Those fuzzy, fuzzy ears make me forget that he could - and would - totally eat my face.
