Otis Fishing Report NOTE for September 8-9, 2023: To viewers and chatters who weren’t with us in prior years, we’re introducing a new count term which should be prevalent in the next few weeks’ reports. We’re thinking today’s report may be rather long, so we’re going to provide this information beforehand.
We have:
The Fish: Self-explanatory. 😉
The High-Grade: Sometimes bears will eat only the brains, skin, and eggs — high-calorie intake. These are the prime parts of the fish bears eat when live fish are plentiful. And in high-grading, bears leave behind…
The Scrap: Part of a fish left behind by another bear, usually following a High-Grade. Accumulated by Otis by way of Meander Fishing, sitting behind another successful bear in a prime fishing spot, or perhaps begging (no shame in begging; it’s just being first in line for scraps).
The Pirate: A fish another bear… uh… negotiates (yeah; that’s the word)… negotiates away from Otis. They count for zero calories for our boy, unless he consumes part of it, and then we give him credit for a Scrap. 😉
The Sniff: This is a fish Otis catches and releases. There’s something fishy, and Otis snubs his nose at them.
And today we introduce The DOA: DOAs are Dead-On-Arrival fish. They are spawned salmon that’ve achieved their goal of returning to their birth place and setting the stage for a new generation of salmon. Salmon in DOA form continue to provide for the environment — they provide nutrients to the landscape when washed ashore, or to the River, or they feed birds or bears. Nothing goes to waste. 🙂 We count DOAs as the same calories as Scraps because we can’t tell how much fish is there to be consumed most of the time, plus a dead fish is less nutritious (has started to decompose and no eggs remaining).
How do we tell them apart for the Fishing Report? Well, to be truthful, it’s sometimes difficult given lighting, angles, and whatnot of the cams. But we do our best to tell (1) how much of a fish is in Otis’ mouth or paw and (2) whether or not it’s wiggling. 😀 Yes, this fish counting business is highly scientific. Hahaha!
Here’s an example of a DOA captured on River Watch a short bit ago today.
More later, and sending wishes for fishes until then! ♥
Bear cam images in this post are copyright National Park Service and/or Explore.org
