Mike Fitz commented on June 17, 2019 at 09:57 AKDT :
"Just FYI, I've updated the featured comment to include info on a bearcam iNaturalist project that I think many of you will be interested in." Are You There, Brown Bear?
Mike Fitz' June 17, 2019 08:15 AKDT comment after edit adding : Are You There, Brown Bear? INaturalist Project by Mike Fitz, Project Curator information:
About the Are You There, Brown Bear? iNaturalist Project by Mike Fitz, Project Curator:[]
Help document the presence of brown bears at Brooks River, Alaska. by Mike Fitz, Project Curator:
Katmai National Park is home to over 2,000 brown bears and people visit from all over the world to watch them. Over one hundred individual bears have been identified using Brooks River, site of world-famous Brooks Falls, in a single year.
Since 2001, Katmai National Park biologists have monitored bear and human use at Brooks River to record the number of individual bears; their activity rates; bear “arrival” dates; fish capture rates; and relative bear and human use in the river downstream of the falls. Biologists currently monitor bears from late June through July and again from late August through early October. These defined observation periods coincided with peak activity at the river.
However, the bear monitoring program is limited by staffing and time constraints, and there is much we don’t know about this population. With the advent and popularity of webcams (bear cams) at Brooks River, the public has the opportunity to contribute to this long-term monitoring study.
Contributing is easy:
1. Watch the bearcams at explore.org/bears
2. Take a snapshot when you see bears
3. Upload the image to iNaturalist
4. Geotag the image so it is located at Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska (58.555377 N, 155.791516 W)
5. Tag the image with this project.
6. Answer a few basic questions about the photo.
7. Submit your observation!
Thank you for your contribution to this project!