McNeil River starts from alpine lakes and glacier, which is located in the mountain tops of the Aleutian Range in Alaska. It flows freely towards the shores of Lower Cook Inlet while giving the life to a variety of wildlife, including brown bears.
Brown bears, bald eagles, harbor seals, arctic ground squirrels, salmon, and red fox, birds, sea ducks, waterfowl, wolverine, wolves, caribou, and moose are also commonly observed.
Due to the wide array of wildlife the Alaska State Legislature designated the river area as a wildlife sanctuary about 50 years ago. The area was enlarged to protect the world’s highest concentration of brown bears in 1993.
This is a one of the place where visitors can observe wild brown bears nap, nurse cubs and all their behaviors.
There’s only a limited access to human to the sanctuary. Just a small number of people are allowed to visit the sanctuary and photograph the bear congregation in every year.
The visitors should have a permit to see wild brown bears. Names are drawn through a lottery system, and even though they’re not getting drawn a lot of people apply for this. The number of visitors is limited to 13 a day, with 4-day visits allowed between June 7 and August 25.
But, Drew Hamilton, a tech worker at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game at the Sanctuary, had being closely encountered with a big brown bear in the sanctuary.
The bear wasn’t disturbed by Hamilton’s presence in the sanctuary though the bear appeared out of nowhere.
It was a pleasant surprise to him and he recorded the brown bear walking to the riverbank.
Hamilton was sitting and relaxing in his camping chair. The bear walked right up to him and sat next to him and the both enjoy the beautiful scenery and nice breeze.
Check out the video below.
the source used: positivethingsonly.com