National Geographic: Giant Bears of Kodiak Island

Follow the largest carnivore that walks the earth, the great Kodiak bear, down ancient feeding trails, up salmon-rich rivers - even into a den where a mother nurses her newborn cubs. You'll watch cubs learning to fish, bears gorging in berry-laden fields, and a remarkable scene of bears consuming a beached whale carcass. The setting is Alaska's Kodiak Island, where 4,000-foot mountains rise from hundreds of miles of jagged coastline. Today about 2,700 of these larger cousins of the well-known grizzly bear still thrive there. But change looms on the horizon. Portions of the island are open to development. Dramatic home videos of dangerous tourist/bear encounters capture the uneasy clashes of Kodiak's modern and natural worlds. Enjoy this rare look into the lives of the Giant Bears of Kodiak Island, produced and photographed by renowned wildlife filmmaker Wolfgang Bayer.