I was hiking up a river on Chichagof island in the rain one wet fall. A few salmon sluggishly swam upstream, but it was a slow start to the spawning season. A mid-sized brown bear came trudging out of the trees, barely eyeballing me before plowing straight into the center of the river. There it sat, up to its neck in water, watching. And waiting. Sometimes it dipped its head underwater to look for fish swimming past, but there were so few that it gave up the hunt for live fish and moved on to the dead. Apparently there were a quite a few rotten salmon on the bottom of the river. The bear pulled these up one at a time, held a rank fish delicately in its claws, and chewed the decaying flesh with an air of contentment. Photographer: Emily Mount