Did you know…

The brown bears of Alaska’s Katmai National Park eat a year’s worth of food in around six months. That food is primarily salmon, which bulks up the bears for hibernation. At this point in the year, they’ve transformed from smaller, hungry bears to healthy, fat, winter-ready bears.

🐻 Fat Bear Week, October 4th – 11th, celebrates this transformation and spotlights Katmai’s healthy ecosystem, too. Here are some activities you can do:

• Meet the bears here. Katmai National Park’s brown bears are some of the largest bears on Earth. They have highlighted 12 bears for you to read and about and vote.
• Observe bears through the Brooks Falls Live Cam. This website has live streams from animal cams across the country. On the Brooks Falls Live Cam, you’ll see a section of Katmai that is a well-known hot spot for bears. You can watch both live and highlight reels of Alaska’s famed brown bears catching the salmon that leap out of the water as they return to their spawning pools.
• Read the Bears of Brooks River 2022 guidebook. This nearly 100-page e-book contains a wealth of information about the lives and habits of Alaska’s bears.
• Explore the Polar Bear Capital of the World with Google Maps.

Post a comment about something new you learned.