This photo is the location of my most profound wildlife experience: finding my self face to face with a black bear. The place is Vancouver Island. Early in the morning I opened the door of the Backpackers hostel we were staying in and, there right in front of me was a sizable black bear. Black bears are not large bears, but to me it was fairly enormous. In New Zealand the largest mammals you might come across in the wild are goats or deer; they of course will run off, probably before you even see them. As the bear and I looked at each other I found I wasn't afraid, even though I could have let a dozen stories of how dangerous bears could be run through my mind. Instead I felt calm and enjoyed my brief moment with the bear until it sniffed the air around it and ambled off to find more rubbish bins to forage in. Then it was gone. But, the image of that experience has never left my mind and I realised that enjoying the moment was far more important than racing back into the hostel to find a camera to try and photograph it. In the time it would have taken me to get my camera it would have probably moved on anyway. So, I guess that's why I only have a photo of where the bear and I met; not of the actual meeting.
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