This may seem non-controversial. After all, wild animal populations are made of individuals just like human families and communities are composed of individual people. But this idea hasn’t been accepted widely among scientists and managers of national parks.
Thankfully that tide seems to be turning, and I’m pleased to be able to contribute to this scientific effort. Results from a survey of bear cam viewers on explore.org show that people who care about Otis and other individual bears are more likely support conservation efforts for brown bears compared to viewers who do said they could not identify individual bears. Please head over to my post on explore.org to learn more.
Bear 480 Otis sits in his office at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, Alaska.
I’d like to thank the researchers who made this study possible—Jeff Skibins (who drafted this paper and did the data analysis) and Lynne Lewis and Leslie Richardson (who were instrumental in the survey design and implementation). I’d also like to thank the Katmai Conservancy for covering the expense to make the paper available to everyone through open access.
Last summer, explore.org celebrated the 10th anniversary of the bear cams at Brooks River in Katmai National Park. These webcams offer an in-depth look at the behavior and ecology of a population of brown bears, allow us to observe the same individual bears over many years–giving us the chance to learn about their personalities and habits–and provide a platform for rangers and other experts to host live programs and commentary about the bears and their stories. It’s a wildlife watching experience like no other.
As part of the celebration, I chose to highlight some the moments that I thought were most memorable from the last ten years of bear cam. Some explore point-in-time events. Others celebrate the behavior of individual bears who have left their mark on Brooks River in ways we can’t forget or ignore. Each was unforgettable from my perspective. I hope you enjoy them.
Most Defensive Mother: 128 Grazer
Grazer is an archetypal mother bear. Don’t get in her way and don’t approach her cubs.
Lefty Learns to Fish at Brooks Falls
Old bears can definitely learn new tricks. In July 2015, we watched a fully mature adult male brown bear figure out how to fish where he’d never fished before.
Otis Eats 42 Salmon in a Sitting
Be awed by the capacity of his stomach.
Death of 451’s Spring Cub
When a bear cub falls ill the world will watch.
503’s Saga
A lone yearling finds a new family.
Reign of 856
Few bears will ever experience the prolonged dominance and advantage earned by 856.
2020 Salmon Smorgasbord
What happens when bears have access to unlimited salmon? The 2020 salmon run gave us the answer.
History of Fat Bear Week
A goofy idea becomes a world famous internet sensation.
We are Family: 909, 910, and Cubs
Sister bears reunite while raising cubs to create an extended family.
If that’s not enough, the bear cam community complied links to all of our bear cam live events from 2022. Two stand out in my mind: 1. The impromptu Q&A about a fight between and mother bear and a dominant male, and 2. The bear cam 10th anniversary live chat.
We’ve seen a lot of special moments on the cams during the last ten summers–perhaps too many to recall–so these are only a small snippet of the larger story. What are your most memorable moments from the bear cams?
As is tradition—going way back to the before times (2017)—I’ve endorsed a bear for Fat Bear Week. This year’s bracket might be difficult to predict, but with voting commencing today at 12 p.m. Eastern and continuing through October 11, it’s time to throw my weight behind a Fat Bear Week contender.
I’d let him speak for himself but his mouth is usually too full of salmon.
Friends, humans, and ursids, let us stand in awe of a true competitor. A candidate with conviction. A candidate with strength. A candidate that stands up for what he believes. A candidate the size of a double-wide refrigerator. This Fat Bear Week vote for the mighty 747.
747 returns to Brooks River every summer as a giant and just keeps getting bigger.
Perhaps you don’t want to listen to me. After all, I’ve endorsed 747 before and it hasn’t usually led to his victory. Our culture is celebrity obsessed, though, so maybe you’ll listen the expert opinions of these randos.
Homer remarked that 747 is the only other individual whose blubber flies like his.
Dr. Evil threatened world destruction if 747 fails to win.
I spoke with the President too, believe it or not. (He seems to clear his schedule when you have something to say about Fat Bear Week.) Joe Biden noted that 747 grew proportionally faster than this year’s inflation rate.
747’s summer was one of competition and success. In June and July, he yielded space to bear 856. By August, however, 747 turned the tables. He frequently challenged and displaced his long-time rival.
It’s hard work staying dominant and getting fat too. Bears as large as 747 tend to overheat easily, and while their limb bones are built to support their great mass sometimes climbing those hills is a struggle.
Name another bear who struggles uphill with such finesse. Here's a full minute of 747 riding a leisurely struggle bus. pic.twitter.com/mUoM4JxbbK
You also can’t get that fat without eating a lot of food, and 747 excels in this life goal. Although we don’t know exactly how many fish 747 ate this year, a study about brown bears on Kodiak Island may provide some insight.
Brown bears shed their fur once per year in early to mid summer. Since new fur grows during a bear’s active season, it contains a record of what the bear ate during that time. Studies of captive bears had previously determined the relationship between the mercury content in food and the mercury content in hair. To apply this to bears on Kodiak, researchers first determined how much mercury is found in the Pacific salmon that spawn on Kodiak. They then analyzed the mercury content found in the bears’ hair to gain an estimate of salmon consumption. Large adult males, on average, ate 6,146 pounds (2,788 kg) per bear per year! Some adult males ate a lot more, though, as much as 10,000 pounds of salmon. Since 747 fished at Brooks Falls almost every day between late June and mid September this summer, then his total salmon consumption may likely have been near the upper end of that spectrum.
For fisheries managers and biologists, these statistics are more than pieces of trivia. They are necessary to help inform decisions about salmon escapement goals, so that salmon runs are sustainable for people and the wildlife who depend on them. The aforementioned Kodiak study found that “the estimated population of 2,300 subadult and adult bears [on Kodiak] consumed 3.77 million kg of salmon annually, a mass equal to ~6 percent of the combined escapement and commercial [salmon] harvest (57.6 million kg).” Katmai National Park’s bear population is about as large as Kodiak’s, and when we work to sustain salmon runs we’re also celebrating the life they provide to many other species and individuals, such as bear 747.
Bears get fat to survive winter hibernation, and Katmai National Park’s Fat Bear Week bears are well positioned to weather the oncoming famine. But there’s candidate who eclipses the rest. Your bear might be a 10 but 747 is 1,400 pounds. I’m voting for 747, are you?
Download your bracket from FatBearWeek.org and go there to vote in each Fat Bear Week match from October 5 to 11.
THE THING ABOUT BEARS IS THAT A LOT OF THEM ARE BIG. BUT LIKE HAVE YOU SEEN 747?? HE’S SO BIG. A GIANT, REALLY. HE JUST SITS THERE AND FISHES LIKE THERE’S NO TOMORROW. I MEAN HE HARDLY LEFT THE FALLS ALL SUMMER. DOESN’T MATTER HOW COLD THE WATER IS OR WHICH OTHER BEARS ARE THERE….
Life as a champ is rough. Rivals look to take advantage of any weakness you might show. Arm chair critics analyze your every move. Fans expect perfection. When the next championship tournament rolls into town your body has aged another year and your preferred food has worked its hardest to evade and escape you. Meanwhile, you’re trying to live your best life, because you are a bear and the concerns of humans matter not to you.
Yet, for those of us who recognize greatness and celebrate success when we see it, there is one clear choice for Fat Bear Week 2021—the mighty 747.
Long-time readers of this blog may be thinking, “This again?”
…Let me tell you dear friends: 747 is as fat as ever. He deserves your Fat Bear Week vote.
Brown bears get fat to survive. Their obesity (and it is that since a bear’s body fat percentage is routinely 20-30 percent or more when they begin hibernation) is a savings account. In the den, bears do not eat or drink. They stay warm and hydrated by burning body fat. Unlike utilizing muscle for energy—a process that produces metabolic wastes that must be recycled, sequestered, or purged from the body—burning fat is a relatively clean fuel as I write in chapter 4 of my book, The Bears of Brooks Falls.
It’s akin to cultivating mass only to carefully harvest it later. Just not for vanity’s sake, bro.
747 cultivates mass at an exceptional rate. This summer, he reigned as Brooks River’s most dominant adult male. Even the river’s long-time dominant bear, 856, would not challenge him, and as a result 747 had nearly free access to any fishing spot of his desire.
A single brown bear can eat thousands of pounds of salmon per year. The largest can eat 6,000 to 10,000 pounds. Given his size, appetite, high rank in the bear hierarchy, and his keen fishing skills, 747 is more than capable of eating many thousands of pounds of salmon each summer. At Brooks Falls, he intercepts a great deal of fish by being at the right place at the right time and waiting for his food to come to him. When Brooks River’s sockeye migrated upstream, 747 was primed to harvest them.
He’s so successful that in September 2019 and again in September 2020, he was estimated to weigh more than 1,400 pounds. This places him, as I estimate, among the top one percent of brown bears based on body mass.
Even with his size, he remains agile.
747 reminds Grazer and cubs that he's still a dominant big boy at Brooks Falls. pic.twitter.com/mNNNF3OD66
And yes, that is a tapeworm hanging on for a ride.
Fat Bear Week celebrates the success of Brooks River’s bears, the ecosystem and salmon that sustain them, and the bears’ abilities to get fat and survive. 747 exemplifies success among adult male brown bears. He deserves your vote and a repeat Fat Bear Week victory.
Brooks River in Katmai National Park is unique among bear watching sites, because its bears are known individuals with life histories so well documented that several are veritable internet celebrities. Many return to Brooks River year after year, some for their entire lives, a phenomenon we can watch on the bearcams. At Brooks River, bears are not anonymous wildlife, but unique individuals that we can know. Perhaps no other place offers the public the same wildlife watching opportunity.
Many of these same bears feature prominently in my book, The Bears of Brooks Falls. I explore how Otis and 747 satisfy their profound hunger, how 856 establishes and maintains his dominance, how 402 and other female bears navigate the mating season, and how mother bears like 273 nurture their vulnerable cubs.
Since watching the lives of individual bears is a focus of many bearcam fans, I’m frequently asked, “Mike, which bears are on the cover of your book?”
I’ve steadfastly refused to answer, until now that is. I’ll answer, I promise, but you’ll have to do a bit of work first, and perhaps win a copy of my book in the process. Here’s how.
Guess the identity of the bears on the print and audiobook covers.
Correct answers to the identities of bears on the print book cover will be entered into a drawing to receive a personalized signed copy by the author of The Bears of Brooks Falls.
Correct answers to the identities of bears on the audiobook cover will be entered into a drawing to win a free copy of the audiobook of The Bears of Brooks Falls.
Everyone who submits answers, whether correct or not, will be entered into a drawing to win a free copy of the print book.
If you feel a bit unsure about which bears are on the book covers, here are some hints to consider.
On the print book cover, one of the bears hasn’t been seen at Brooks River in many years and is presumed deceased. The other two continue to use Brooks River, now as older individuals.
On the audiobook cover, only one of the bears was identified at the river in 2020. The other has not been seen since 2013.
Neither the print or audiobook cover photos were taken within the last seven years, but they were taken after 2005.
Bearcam is back for 2021, and while it’s still very early in the season several bears—including Grazer, Holly, and their yearlings—have made an appearance. As Rangers Naomi Boak and Lian Law discussed with me during our Welcome to Bearcam live chat, there are many fascinating storylines to follow this year. At the risk of offering a shameless plug, my book, The Bears of Brooks Falls, explores many of those stories too.
A dedicated book club has sprung up to discuss the book. At the end of each meeting, participants answer one question: If you could ask the author anything, what would be? Below, I’m happy to answer those questions. If you are interested in joining the book club for their next discussion on June 19 via Zoom, please sign up.
Questions from the club’s discussion of Part One: Creation and Discovery (May 29, 2021)
Can you clarify WHY there used to be fewer bears at the falls? In the past, were they hazed away? Did they stay away from the falls because anglers were given priority there?
In Part One of my book, I discuss the events that led to the proclamation of Katmai National Monument in 1918 and the monument’s evolution into one of the largest national parks in the United States. Bears were not a major tourist attraction at Brooks River until long after Brooks Lodge was established. It wasn’t because anglers were given priority. It was because the bear population was much smaller than today. The national monument was expanded in 1931 to include areas such as Brooks River to protect habitat for wildlife like bears, but:
By all accounts, few bears used the river when Brooks Lodge first opened for business in 1950. Bears and any type of bear-management activities were absent from the reports of the first rangers stationed at Brooks Camp. Ranger Russell Todd, for example, never saw a bear on foot in the summer of 1954. The presence of people alone was apparently enough of a deterrent to displace bears from the river except at night. In 1957, biologists conducting salmon research at Brooks River for the US Fish and Wildlife Service reported bears “loudly evident” every night during September at the salmon- counting weir strung across the head of the river.
How many bears lived within the monument at that time remains an open question, but it was likely not many. The population may even have been at a nadir, the result of decades of heavy hunting pressure near the monument and, I suspect, the lingering effects of the 1912 eruption. After a two- summer biological investigation of the monument in 1953 and 1954, Victor Cahalane reported: “It is impossible to make even a rough estimate of the population of bears in Katmai National Monument.” Yet he tried. According to his and other anecdotal sightings, including one from a pilot who claimed to have seen 60 bears along Savonoski River in early September 1954, Cahalane ventured that about 200 bears lived in the monument.
Steady levels of salmon and a reduction in hunting pressure outside the monument were probably the main factors that allowed the area’s bear population to slowly increase, but at Brooks Camp people inadvertently helped accelerate the bears’ use of the river. By the end of the 1960s, a small and growing contingent of bears had become accustomed to the easy access to unsecured food at nearby garbage dumps, the lodge’s burn barrels, and unsecured supplies. By the mid- 1970s, Brooks Camp had become well known as a place to find at least a few bears, and several had begun to fish in the river during the day when people were active. (Pg. 172-173, The Bears of Brooks Falls)
I will add that over the last 40 years, salmon runs in the Naknek River watershed have been quite strong and that, perhaps more than anything else, has allowed the bear population to increase in the park. Additionally, during much of that time, park staff management have emphasized minimizing bear-human conflicts. The experience of cubs that accompanied their mothers to Brooks River may now consist largely of relatively benign contacts with people. This probably allowed the number and proportion of adult bears tolerant of people to increase.
It sounds, from Mike’s description [in Chapter 3 — Ramble], that the outlet of Brooks Lake into Brooks River is pretty shallow. Could global warming threaten the snowfall on the mountains, dropping the level of the lake and halting the flow of the river? If so, could that be a risk in the near future?
Although I can only provide a speculative answer, and while Lake Brooks will be affected by a warmer atmosphere, its water flow may not change appreciably. Lake Brooks occupies a deep basin that is almost completely below the water table of the surrounding land. There are no glaciers in its headwaters, unlike nearby Naknek Lake, so it’s already adapted in a sense to a hydrology that is highly influenced by annual precipitation. Snowmelt is only one influence. After most of the snow melts from the watershed in late spring, then summertime rain seems to have the biggest influence on water levels in the lake. Wetter summers can raise lake levels more than a foot compared to dry summers. Importantly, much of its water is sourced from spring-fed streams and springs under the lake surface. So, even during drought years, the lake basin experiences some recharge.
Climate change is certainly altering Katmai’s landscape, both the land and water. In 2019, we saw the impacts of a very hot, dry summer on Brooks River. Water levels were quite low and water temperatures were quite hot during an early July heat wave that year. However, water continued to flow through the river, albeit at a reduced level.. That’s just one year, though. By the end of the century—especially if we don’t get our act together and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible—the summer of 2019 will be one of the coolest of this century. Droughts and heat waves may become the norm in Katmai. For more information on the present and future of Katmai’s climate, please see chapter 17 of The Bears of Brooks Falls.
Can you clarify the distance from Brooks River to Margot Creek? Is it common — or uncommon — to see “our” cam bears at Margot Creek?
The shoreline of Naknek Lake between Brooks River and Margot Creek is about 13 miles, well within a day’s walk for a brown bear. If a bear takes a few shortcuts through the forest, then the walk is closer to 10-12 miles.
Several identifiable Brooks River bears use Margot Creek in August including 402, 435 Holly, 480 Otis, and 856. I would not be surprised if there are others well. But, salmon are dispersed widely in central Katmai in August when bears fish at Margot Creek. Unlike early summer and early fall when Brooks River is the only place to fish, bears have many other alternatives to Margot Creek in mid summer so not all Brooks River bears need to go there.
Can you talk about your research process? The book draws on your personal experience — but it clearly draws on extensive research, too.
When I began drafting the manuscript, I thought most of my research was finished since I had to study a lot to prepare programs and talk about bears when I was a park ranger at Katmai and through my current job at explore.org. That head start was helpful but not thorough enough. It was merely the foundation to build upon.
As I wrote, I wanted to be sure that my facts and conclusions were backed up by personal observations, experience, and the best available science. While working on the manuscript, I probably spent half my time reading research and half my time writing.
I began writing each chapter by outlining it. Then after I established what I wanted to write about and the stories that would add depth to the facts, I read or skimmed through the relevant books and scientific papers that I saved previously to establish the basic facts that I wanted to include and confirm what I thought I knew. This led me down many rabbit holes. I probably read dozens of papers for some chapters, especially Chapter 4 on hibernation. Tracking down specific facts and, hopefully, ensuring that I represented them accurately in the book was a tedious yet necessary task. Readers deserve no less.
Not a bear question, but a question for you as an author: What did it hurt to leave out of the book? What did you have to omit that you wish you’d been able to keep?
Quite a lot, actually. For example, I drafted chapters on glaciation and the evolution of Brooks River, but after consulting with an editor I decided to cut those. They weren’t a great fit for the narrative I tried to build. I also wanted to include the story of Holly adopting a yearling 503 in 2014 but couldn’t find the right place for it when I outlined the book. I considered using that story as the framework for Chapter 5: Family, but since adoption in bears is so uncommon I thought it best to focus on a bear whose maternal experiences were engaging yet more typical. That’s how I settled on 273 and her cub for Chapter 5. I’m happy with the final result of that chapter, yet I still wish I had found a way for Holly to be a part of it.
Questions from the club’s discussion of Chapter 6: Mating Season (June 6, 2021)
What if a female [bear] doesn’t want to mate? How much “say” does she have in the decision?
The female bear can’t control estrus or the signals that indicate to males that she is in estrus. However, female bears seem to have a lot of say in the timing of copulation. Although male bears are much larger than females, I’ve never seen a male bear force himself on a female bear. Instead, he doggedly follows her until she is ready to accept his advances. I also wonder if prolonged courtship can provide female bears with the chance to shed a suitor that they do not prefer. As I write in the book, a bear’s sense of smell is so powerful that a female can’t hide from a male. But, since mating opportunities are so limited for males, it’s not uncommon for more than one male to catch the scent of an estrous female. A prolonged estrus cycle coupled with a lengthy courtship could increase competition between males—an unconscious way for her to attract the most “fit” mate.
What is the ratio of males/females at Brooks River?
It hovers near 50:50, but last year there were more females than males. Because large adult male bears occupy the most productive fishing spots at Brooks Falls, it can sometimes seem like there are more males on the river than females. In July 2020 park bear monitoring staff identified slightly more female bears than males (29 adult females, 22 adult males, 14 subadult females, 11 subadult males).
Can you talk a bit about inbreeding? It seems like a lot of the bears we see mating are likely related to each other…
There’s only one confirmed case (through DNA analysis) of consanguineous couplings (inbreeding) between related bears at Brooks River.
24 BB was a very dominant male bear at Brooks River from the late 1990s through 2007. He was the equivalent of 856 during that time, and because of his dominance few bears would ever challenge him for fishing spots or for access to estrus females. BB sired a litter with the female 209. Bear 402, who still uses Brooks River, was one of the cubs from that litter born in 1998. 24 BB then sired a litter with 402. The offspring from the 402/24 relationship were weaned by 402 and identified as independent bears, but have not been seen in many years. I should note that this is common among subadult bears and their absence may not be reflective of interbreeding between a father bear and a daughter bear.
The limited DNA analysis of bears in 2005-2007 did not document any litters from a mother/son relationship. I think it’s unlikely that a bear could mate with its mother for a couple of reasons. 1. Male bears compete for the opportunity to mate with females and a larger, more dominant male would certainly outcompete a younger male bear for access. So while a young male bear is mature enough to mate around age 6, he’s still quite small compared to older males. 2. Young male bears often disperse away from their mother’s home range, and consequently their ranges as adults might not overlap. Mother bears remember who their offspring are too, and mom is often intolerant of the approach of her former cubs (we sometimes see a mother charge her former cubs, even years after family breakup, almost as if she is saying, “I told you to leave. Now stay away”).
Katmai’s brown bear population is quite large and robust. About 2,200 bears were estimated to live wholly or partly within Katmai National Park and Preserve in 2007. Although, we don’t know its true frequency, inbreeding between bears is probably uncommon here since the population is so large.
Why do mating males want to keep females in sight? It seems like all this following females around would distract males from eating and getting fat.
Courtship between bears isn’t always a prolonged process. In fact, sometimes bears couple soon after meeting. Potential male suitors, therefore, need to guard access to their prospective mates, lest they lose a rare mating opportunity.
The pursuit of mating opportunities certainly distracts male bears from other life tasks like fishing for salmon. I remember one July when 856 seemed like he didn’t stop courting females for the entire month. While the other males at the river got their fill of fish, 856 fished only occasionally because he was more interesting in reproduction. Near the end of July, he looked well muscled from the exercise of the pursuit but looked as though he had little body fat.
856 often spends a lot of time courting females in early summer and less time fishing compared to many other adult bears. He can afford to do so because his high level of dominance provides access to fishing spots wherever he goes.
“Survival of the fittest” is often thought to refer to athletic fitness or survival instincts, when it is more accurately framed in terms of reproductive fitness. Perhaps the male bears who have the energy reserves and stamina to court female bears for long periods of time with little food are the most reproductively fit. It’s also important to consider that the bears’ mating season ends in early summer, just when food becomes plentiful in Katmai, so a male who doesn’t eat much in June has ample opportunities to make up for it during the next few months.
Questions from the book club’s discussion of Chapter 14: Boundaries (June 12, 2021)
Is there any research showing how reduced attendance during the 2020 pandemic affected the salmon and/or the bears?
As far as I know, there’s nothing publicly available yet. However, biologists at Katmai National Park expanded the bear-monitoring program last year to collect data that might help answer that question. It was an unexpected research opportunity to observe bears at Brooks River at a time of year when typically it is loaded with people.
Certainly the lack of people at the river in 2020, especially when the camp remained closed to the public, allowed bears more space to fish. The greatest influence on the distribution of bears last year, though, was salmon. The record run of sockeye salmon was overwhelming and it provided bears with ample feeding opportunities throughout the river. In a year with fewer fish, I don’t think we wouldn’t have seen bears using the lower river in early summer as much as they did in 2020, no matter how few people visited.
The bears at Brooks are perhaps more human-habituated than other bears. And yet, as 854 Divot’s story proves, they do wander outside the boundaries of the park, where they will encounter humans who don’t operate according to park rules. Can you offer some reassurance — or some insight — about how their human habituation might affect their fate outside park boundaries?
Habituation at Brooks River provides a bear with advantages. It allows access to parts of the river that may otherwise be off limits if the bear isn’t tolerant of people. At Brooks River, people are especially tolerant of bears too through both attitude and regulations designed to protect bears.
Outside the park, they may not encounter the same tolerance. Having a bear prowling outside your cabin at Brooks Camp is one thing. Having it do so near your children and pets is another.
If a habituated bear wanders into King Salmon, for example, its tolerance for humans may lead it to temptation in the form of unsecured food and trash. A habituated bear could more easily become conditioned to seek human foods in that situation. Bears encounter much greater risks around people in those places than they do at Brook Camp.
Some biologists I’ve spoken to speculate that habituation could be context specific. That is, a bear might be able to learn that people in one location are tolerant while people in another location are dangerous. I think this is plausible but I’m not yet convinced it works that way for most bears. Further research is needed.
It’s been two months since my book, The Bears of Brooks Falls, was released for your reading pleasure. Whether you’re fortunate enough to visit Brooks River in person or if you are a fan of the Brooks River bearcams on explore.org, I hope the book will become a valuable companion to your bear-watching experience. I’ve been pleased to find many people have enjoyed it and found its storylines to be enlightening.
I also hope it’s provoked your curiosity about bears, salmon, Katmai National Park, the history of national parks, and the evolving role that people play in parks and other wild landscapes. With bearcam season right around the corner (expect the cams to go live in mid to late June), I’m also coordinating with bookstores to host online talks about the book.
There’s been no designated place for readers to ask questions about the book though, so let this post serve that purpose. If you have a question or a comment about something you read in The Bears of Brooks Falls, then please drop it in the comments. I’ll do my best to reply. And, of course, I’ll be online almost everyday during bearcam season to answer your questions about bears and salmon as the resident naturalist with explore.org.
Many years ago, inspired by the complicated and fascinating intersection of bears, salmon, and people at a most unique place, I conceived the idea of a book that captured the story of Brooks River in Katmai National Park.
Part one of The Bears of Brooks Falls explores the establishment of Katmai National Monument, from the moments preceding the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century to the discovery of the surreal Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. These events inspired the creation of Katmai National Monument and, soon after, the efforts to expand the park for wildlife like brown bears.
Today, Katmai is most famous for its brown bears. Part two is devoted to their lives as well as the salmon that the bears depend on for their survival. I explore the marvel of the hibernating bear, discover Brooks River from a cub’s perspective, and follow the tribulations and growth of young bears recently separated from their mother. I also ponder how Katmai’s brown bears experience reproduction, competition, hunger, and death.
Few organisms are as important to an ecosystem as sockeye salmon are to Brooks River. These fish face tremendous obstacles and challenges. From freshwater to the ocean and back again, they travel thousands of miles, running a gauntlet of predators to fulfill their destiny. The journey ends when they sacrifice their lives to reproduce. Salmon are Katmai’s keystone, driving Brooks River’s productivity and significance.
In part three, I examine modern humanity’s influence over Brooks River. Humans may be the river’s biggest wildcard. Climate change looms large over the land and seascapes, and people alter the behavior of the bears that make the scene so special. The infrastructure needed to support thousands of visitors and their recreational activities invites conflict with bears. Managing bears and people in such a small area is especially challenging, provoking a decades-long and often emotional debate about the river’s future.
Brooks River’s bears live in a land that straddles the border between the wild and human realms. Their lives are intertwined with ours, and as a result Brooks River is a microcosm for many of the issues facing our national parks. No book has captured this story before.
I’d also love to know what you think of the book. Drop a comment in response to this post, email me, or post a review on the websites of major booksellers.
In September 2017, I took a brief trip to Brooks Camp, the world-famous bear-viewing site in Katmai National Park. This was a rare opportunity for me to visit for fun, as opposed to traveling there to work for the National Park Service or explore.org.
Bear watching is the most popular human activity at the river and the close proximity of Brooks River’s brown bears to the designated wildlife-viewing platforms makes for some exceptional photographic opportunities. However, I toted only a small point and shoot camera with a limited zoom. Taking good photographs, therefore, was challenging so I focused more on recording video of bears. Video can also provide a sense of scale that is sometimes difficult to capture in photos, especially when a titan is in the vicinity.
On the last morning of my trip, I found the colossal 747 walking out the river to challenge a competitor at Brooks Falls. This is what happened.
After I uploaded this video to YouTube, I hadn’t expected it to garner much attention, but a little more than three years later Giant Fat Bear at Brooks Falls is approaching one million views and has generated more than 3,500 comments.
When a video goes viral or becomes modestly popular, you can either let it develop a life of its own or attempt to heighten the experience. A captivating video is a chance to give people more than a few seconds of entertainment. It presents an opportunity.
People are naturally curious, especially so toward animals, but context and relatable, meaningful information are often needed to match that curiosity. How might those in the fields of heritage interpretation or science communication provide the casual viewer with a more meaningful experience? Here are a few of the strategies that I found successful with a short video about a fat bear.
Anticipate what a person with no context of the place or subject might need to know. The universe is a big place. Put yourself in the mindset of someone who does not have your experience or background. Although people relate to brown bears easily and on many levels (they definitely love a chonky bear), the natural history and ecology of these animals are not universally or even well known. I soon realized my modest video description was inadequate. Viewers were drawing conclusions and asking questions that I had not anticipated. They wanted to know more.
Get to know the demographics of your audience. If you read this blog regularly, you’re familiar with the bearcams in Katmai National Park. While the bearcams are extremely popular, receiving tens of millions of views each year, explore.org’s webcam analytics document that the bearcam audience skews heavily toward the female gender and adults over the age of 45. Analytics on Giant Fat Bear at Brooks Falls, however, are much different. Viewers are typically 18 – 35 years old and overwhelming male.
That audience will likely react to and evaluate information differently than the typical bearcam commenter. And, they are relating to different things in the bear world. Knowing that, I might respond to questions and comments on the video in ways that I wouldn’t during a live chat on the bearcams.
If a video generates a lot of similar questions or leads people to make assumptions, write an FAQ to address those and then put it some place obvious. When the views on Giant Fat Bear at Brooks Falls began to skyrocket, I took mental notes on the questions it generated to see if there was a pattern, while keeping in mind that the internet is a big place where people from all over the world can access the video. In addition to the questions people were asking, the number of comments prompted me to consider how I could provide further context. I identified three questions originally, wrote concise answers for them, and pinned the FAQ to the top of the video comments.
The FAQ didn’t stop people from asking questions (and I didn’t it want it to), but it caused the queries to change. Questions became less repetitive. They branched to other facets of bear biology. Plenty of people appear to be reading the FAQ as well. As of this writing, the FAQ on Giant Fat Bear has 2.8 thousand likes and zero dislikes.
The FAQ proved to be particularly valuable in ways that I did not expect. Much of the internet is little more than websites recycling (to state it mildly) the work of others. When the video first began to trend in 2018, the FAQ was often the only source of info used by websites looking to generate click-bait content based off my video. It was used in the prestigious Daily Mail, for example, to produce one of the tabloid’s most fact-laden articles ever.
When in doubt, assume that a person asks questions in good faith. It’s not always easy to discern the difference between questions asked in good or bad faith, and trolls should not be engaged. However, each person experiences life through the lens of a unique worldview and knowledge base. Furthermore, access to open space and outdoor recreation (both physically and inclusively) is far too limited for many people, especially among those that experience racism and discrimination. Yet biophilia and an instinctual curiosity reverberates through each of us, and by asking a question a person signals that they want to learn.
This is why I included “Are you making fun of the bear’s fatness?” in the FAQ. It’s not dumb to not know much about bears. Most of us don’t have easy access to bear habitat, let alone the opportunity to observe wild bears. People also post a lot of offensive stuff online. Given the unfortunate status quo of social media, I don’t fault anyone for thinking I might’ve been making fun of a fat bear instead of simply describing him. It is not obvious to everyone that bears must get fat in order to survive.
Think carefully about offers to license your content. Video distribution agencies prowl social media sites looking for engaging videos to add to their collections. Their offers to license and distribute your video look appealing at first glance, but I eventually rejected them all. Providing meaningful information and context was more valuable to me than the ten cents I might make through a third party distributor. I was particularly hesitant because some viral media companies distribute wildlife videos and spread them without context or even checking to see that video was recorded ethically. By rejecting these solicitations, I sacrificed reach but remained in control of the flow of information.
Lastly, choose a catchy title for your video but also one that isn’t confusing. Some comments on Giant Fat Bear at Brooks Falls suggest that a handful of people read the title literally and expected to see a giant fat bear fall.
I’ve greatly enjoyed seeing how this simple video has inspired interest in bears, art, memes, and eventually helped to propel 747 to Fat Bear Week greatness.
As I draft this post, Giant Fat Bear continues to generate questions and comments. Many of the comments are simple jokes, but I still count those as a win. It means that a person was engaged. For those few seconds (and more if they asked a question) they were thinking about bears.
I have no allusion that leaving a comment on a video is the same as stewardship and advocacy for wild animals. But the first step towards stewardship is awareness and understanding. As Freeman Tilden, the founder of modern heritage interpretation, wrote in Interpreting Our Heritage, “Through interpretation, understanding; through understanding, appreciation; through appreciation, protection.” We get there one step at a time and we get there more easily with guides along the way.
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Wandering at Large 