{"id":174403,"date":"2025-09-22T17:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T17:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/174403\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T17:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T17:29:10","slug":"katmai-national-park-where-bears-feast-on-salmon-before-fat-bear-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/174403\/","title":{"rendered":"Katmai National Park: Where bears feast on salmon before Fat Bear Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patty Salkeld of Portland has been voting for years in Explore.org\u2019s spirited Fat Bear Week<\/a> competition. Starting Tuesday, she will once again join millions of viewers, glued to a live webcam<\/a> at Alaska\u2019s Katmai National Park & Preserve<\/a>, and pick her favorite wild brown bear<\/a> bulking up on salmon before hibernation.<\/p>\n

For this year\u2019s 11th annual tournament<\/a>, which runs Sept. 23-30, Salkeld has an advantage in sizing up the bears to fill out her tournament bracket<\/a>: She\u2019s seen some of them in real life.<\/p>\n

In July, the retired teacher and lifetime wildlife enthusiast flew in three progressively smaller planes 2,000 miles northeast<\/a> to the remote Katmai National Park<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The 4 million-acre park on the northern Alaska Peninsula borders Bristol Bay, the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world. This makes Katmai the prize destination for those, like Salkeld, who want to see and photograph bears in the wild.<\/p>\n

There, at Brooks River where the web cameras are stationed, Salkeld encountered the hefty, opportunistic omnivores up close, while maintaining a safe distance.<\/p>\n

She, like all visitors to Katmai National Park, learned at Brooks Camp “bear school”<\/a> that this is protected wildlife territory<\/a> and bears have the right-of-way<\/a>. <\/p>\n

People step off the trail if a 1,200-pound male bear lumbers by. They walk in groups and talk \u2014 some repeating, \u201cHey, bear\u201d \u2014 to avoid startling free-roaming mothers and cubs. <\/p>\n

If visitors come face to face with a bear, they\u2019re instructed to stay calm and wave their arms to look big.<\/p>\n

Park rangers explain that the bears that grow to be exceptionally large here due to their salmon-rich diet are not hungry and are accustomed to an audience watching their innate behaviors. <\/p>\n

They just want to move on.<\/p>\n

Rangers point out that no humans have been killed by bears at Brooks Falls in the camp\u2019s 75 year history.<\/p>\n

Salkeld said she and her three cabin roommates stopped quickly when they saw two juvenile bears on the ground, looking around. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe rangers tell you not to run, and that was my first instinct, but we didn\u2019t,\u201d Salkeld said. \u201cThe subadult bears weren\u2019t looking at us. They wanted nothing to do with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guests are required to stay at least 50 yards from the bears, unless the people are elevated above the ground on a gated viewing platform. Up there, Salkeld watched two young bears playing in the grass just 10 feet below, offering a rare close-up view while maintaining safety.<\/p>\n

The real action, however, takes place in the water at Brooks Falls, considered one of the last great salmon runs on earth. Here, a parade of sockeye salmon leap in front of the bears, making it easy for the bears to catch the fish with their powerful jaws. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe bears have a hierarchy and their favorite fishing spots at the falls, and they do a lot of posturing and roaring to get another bear to back down,\u201d said Salkeld, who taught for 25 years in the Reynolds School District and sixth graders at the weeklong Outdoor School<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very spiritual for me to see wildlife that has never been hunted or harassed by humans,\u201d she added. \u201cWe are their guests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Food, scented items like toothpaste and chewing gum and gear are stored in bear-resistant buildings. <\/p>\n

Visitors can eat only in dedicated dining spaces, either in the 1950-built Brooks Lodge<\/a>\u2018s dining hall, where meals are served three times a day, or at sheltered picnic tables. <\/p>\n

Overnight guests pop up a tent inside the campground\u2019s electrified fence for $10-$18 per person per night. Or, if they win a random drawing lottery<\/a>, they can stay in the 16-room Brooks Lodge where a cabin with four bunkbeds cost about $1,100 a night. <\/p>\n

Salkeld decided to splurge on a cabin and through the lottery was able to stay one night in the peak of feeding season.<\/p>\n

Fat Bear Week\"(F.\"Guy<\/p>\n

1\/5<\/p>\n

Fat Bear Week<\/p>\n

This turned out to be a great year for bear watchers at Brooks Falls. <\/p>\n

Rangers estimate 62 million sockeye salmon, a vital source of fat and protein for coastal bears, passed through this summer. The abundant and prolonged stream of the blazing red fish benefited the park\u2019s about 2,200 residents bears<\/a>. <\/p>\n

And the feasting has created ideal conditions for an exciting 2025 Fat Bear Week competition. Last year, 11 million viewers worldwide tuned in to watch Brooks Falls\u2019 eight bear cams. And more than 1.2 million votes<\/a> were cast last year at fatbearweek.org<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Participants compare early and late summer photos<\/a> of bears that gain hundreds of pounds<\/a>, and decide which one has exhibited smarts, resilience and determination to survive winter hibernation. <\/p>\n

The largest male brown bears can rise 10 feet tall and after a summer of eating, weigh as much as a polar bear<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Burly Otis (bear 480) is the record-holder for most salmon consumed in one sitting. The bear, voted Fat Bear Week champion in the contest\u2019s first year in 2014 and again in 2016 and 2017, was observed by rangers eating 42 salmon (about 240,000 calories) in 5.5 hours.<\/p>\n

At around 800 pounds, skillful Grazer (bear 128)<\/a>, with her female cub Biggie just named 2025 Fat Bear Jr.<\/a>, could earn her third Fat Bear Week championship. <\/p>\n

The bear with the most votes in each matchup advances to the next round. The one with the most votes will be crowned Fat Bear Week champion Sept. 30.<\/p>\n

Salkeld, who keeps Explore.org\u2019s bear webcam<\/a> streaming from mid June to mid October on her computer, hopes to return to Katmai National Park & Preserve if she can win the lottery again to stay at Brooks Lodge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t wait to go back, and I could go back over and over and over,\u201d Salkeld said of the park that cannot be accessed by car<\/a>. \u201cObserving and photographing bears playing, fishing and eating in their natural habitat was a pinnacle for me.\u201d <\/p>\n

Returning to Brooks Falls \"Eva\"Eva<\/p>\n

1\/14<\/p>\n

Katmai National Park<\/p>\n

A small group of webcam viewers and Fat Bear Week voters can say they\u2019ve actually been to the Katmai wilderness. Fewer still can say they witnessed feeding season, when brown bears are feasting in salmon streams, sedge meadows and mud flats where they devour clams. <\/p>\n

Eva Thiemann, a nurse, naturalist and artist who lives in southern Oregon\u2019s Rogue Valley, first visited Katmai National Park in 1998.<\/p>\n

She stayed in a tall tipi at Brooks Camp campground, before the electric fencing was installed. She returned, half of the time on solo trips, in 2006, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2017 and 2018. <\/p>\n

And in August, on her eighth visit, she introduced her partner Ron Avery to the scene. \u201cThis is a unique place, where animals are not hunted, bears are just doing their own thing and minding their own business,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

They camped seven nights, the maximum allowed, and carried in everything they\u2019d needed, from a tent to homemade jerky. <\/p>\n

Avery, an experienced camper and retired engineer, didn\u2019t have the bear spray he thought he needed, but he said he felt safe. They had three bear encounters, mostly on paths through the woods. <\/p>\n

\u201cMany of us have seen the videos of bears catching fish on top of Brooks Falls,\u201d Avery said. But being there in person, \u201cwas one of the top experiences of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Avery packed nutritious, quick-to-reheat food like sweet potato stew with chickpeas along with sesame seed bars that he prepared, dehydrated, and vacuum-sealed at his Jacksonville home before the trip.<\/p>\n

Still, he lost four pounds, he joked, spending time with Thiemann watching the bears from the platforms. They left their tent early in the morning, and didn\u2019t return to the camp until around 1 p.m. to have their first meal.<\/p>\n

Thiemann was eager to walk in the early morning, rain or shine, to stand on the Brooks Falls platform, overlooking Brooks River and Naknek Lake where the bears congregate at the salmon run. <\/p>\n

Her visits to national parks inspire her art<\/a>. Her oil paintings of Brook Falls brown bears, southern Oregon great grey owls and wolves she saw in Brooks Falls, Denali National Park and Yellowstone National Park have been exhibited in Oregon galleries.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel there is an unfair attitude toward animals like wolves and bears, which have a hard time surviving in the world dominated by humans,\u201d said Thiemann. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, a brown bear is a symbol of wilderness, a symbol of undisturbed nature,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Thiemann and Avery hope to return to Brooks Camp if they are lucky enough to get a camping permit. <\/p>\n

In the past, Thiemann enjoyed watching cubs being weaned off their mothers on their second or third summers and learning to tend for themselves. <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes siblings hang out together for a while for safety and companionship, then they part to live a solitary life of an adult bear,\u201d said Thiemann.<\/p>\n

Some years, when salmon was scarce, Thiemann saw female brown bears, called sows, with cubs fishing further down from the falls.<\/p>\n

Stronger and bolder sows took their cubs on top of the falls and would fight off big male bears, called boars, to get a better fishing spot, she said.<\/p>\n

She studies their different demeanors and tempers to recognize individual bears. \u201cA few bears choose not to work so hard, but rather fight to steal other bears\u2019 fish,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

A bear nicknamed Scarface by rangers had body scars from battling bigger bears. <\/p>\n

She has seen a bear with a broken front leg fishing on top of the falls, another bear had a broken jaw: \u201cAnd they kept fishing,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Thiemann\u2019s videos of the Alaska Peninsula brown bears were included in National Geographic<\/a> TV shows \u201cKing Bear,\u201d \u201cPlanet Carnivore,\u201d \u201cAnimal Fight Night\u201d and \u201cUrban Jungle.\u201d <\/p>\n

Even researchers are still discovering new aspects of these bears\u2019 behaviors and habits, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one knows everything about them,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a privilege just to observe them in their natural habitat.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you go: Katmai National Park & Preserve<\/a> spans more than 4 million acres. Park headquarters is at 1000 Silver St., Building 603<\/a> in King Salmon, Alaska. <\/p>\n

Visitors typically take an air taxi flight<\/a> from Anchorage to King Salmon and a small float plane or boat to Brooks Camp<\/a>, at the mouth of the Brooks River and the shore of Naknek Lake.<\/p>\n

Brooks Camp has lodging, a dining hall serving three meals a day and a camp store, and is about a mile to the Brooks Falls viewing platform. <\/p>\n

Information about day trips and overnight cabin reservations<\/a> at 16-room Brooks Lodge<\/a> is available at katmailand.com<\/a> or by calling 800-544-0551. <\/p>\n

From June 1 to Sept. 17, the National Park Service operates a visitor center, ranger station and an auditorium with daily ranger-led programs<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The campground<\/a> can accommodate up to 60 people. The cost is $18 per person a night June 1 through Sept. 17; and $10 per person per night in May and Sept. 18-Oct. 31. For more information, visit recreation.gov<\/a> or call 877-444-6777. Check out Brooks Camp weather at forecast.weather.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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