Katmai bear cams return as Brooks River season begins

Katmai's bear cams return Tuesday, opening another summer of watching brown bears gather at Brooks Falls and along the Brooks River as salmon begin moving upstream.

The livestreams from Katmai National Park and Preserve and explore.org are scheduled to go live at 11 a.m. Alaska time June 23. The cams have become one of Alaska's most recognizable wildlife windows, carrying daily scenes from Brooks Falls, the lower Brooks River, the Riffles and nearby Katmai viewpoints to viewers far beyond the park.

At Brooks Falls, bears crowd into fishing positions as salmon run upriver. The National Park Service says as many as 25 bears have been seen fishing at the falls at the same time in July.

Other cameras show different parts of the same seasonal story.

The lower river cam is a good place to watch mothers and cubs in July and bears feeding near the river mouth in September and October.

The Riffles cam shows bears that cannot compete for prime spots at the falls chasing salmon downstream.

The river watch cam can show bears from the bridge level or underwater views of salmon, trout and snorkeling bears.

The summer livestream also starts the long public build toward Fat Bear Week, the fall bracket-style vote that has turned Katmai's brown bears into an annual national event. The premise is simple and very Alaska: bears spend the summer turning salmon into winter survival, and the public votes on which bear did it best.

Bear Week is funny on the surface, but the biology is serious. Brown bears at Brooks River depend on dense salmon runs to gain the fat they need before winter. The same cameras that make the contest popular also show viewers the connection between salmon, bears and Katmai's protected habitat.

Bear activity usually shifts as the season changes. Late June and July bring the Brooks Falls spectacle as salmon arrive. Later in the summer and fall, more bears feed on dead and dying salmon in the lower Brooks River.

Katmai was first set aside in 1918 after the 1912 Novarupta eruption, the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. Today, the park is known worldwide both for the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and for the brown bears that gather each year at Brooks River.