It was a typical morning for Lake Country\u2019s Cory Jmaeff when he hiked into the backcountry armed with his camera to look for wildlife subjects last week, but the excursion ended up far different than expected.<\/p>\n
Trekking along a trail in the Beaver Lake area behind Lake Country, Jmaeff noticed piles of dirt had been dug up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wondered if it was from bears digging in the area so when I arrived at an open spot to look for wildlife to photograph, I was on the alert for bears,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said he scanned the landscape several times without noticing anything until he finally zeroed in on a grizzly bear, lying down roughly 50 meters away, perfectly blended into its surroundings.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart jumped in the moment of course, I was like \u2018oh crap, this wasn\u2019t what I was expecting,’\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was lying there staring at me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the close distance to the bear, the seasoned wildlife photographer was able to keep calm and get two quick photos of it. Then it stood up.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe kept eye contact with me the whole time and then slowly started walking the other way,\u201d Jmaeff said. \u201cI gave him the same respect and left the area.\u201d<\/p>\n
Different groups have been trying to increase the grizzly bear population in the Okanagan for three decades. In 2018, the Joint Nations Grizzly Bear Initiative<\/a>\u00a0established to help bring grizzlies back to the North Cascades region, allowing the bears to naturally infill into the Okanagan. In 2024, the Okanagan Nation Alliance joined the effort. <\/p>\n Jmaeff is a hunter, hiker and wildlife lover who moved to the Okanagan from Victoria a decade ago. He maintains a network of trail cameras in the Central Okanagan. In the past seven years, numerous grizzlies have been caught on his cameras set up on the east side of Okanagan Lake. \u00a0<\/p>\n