Katmai superintendent reports more bear cubs at Brooks Camp than in years

More brown bear cubs are on the Brooks River this season than Katmai National Park and Preserve has seen in years, Superintendent Mark Sturm said in a National Park Service release announcing Fat Bear Week 2026.

"There are more cubs at Brooks Camp this year than have been seen in a long time," Sturm said. Neither the release nor the park's public pages give a count for this year or for the years he is comparing it to.

Long-term monitoring summarized in Katmai's 2022 resource management newsletter found a positive relationship between the annual abundance of breeding females with cubs and sockeye salmon escapement, the share of a run that gets past the fishery to spawn. The same monitoring documented lower spring cub survival in years when escapement was low.

Recent Bristol Bay sockeye runs have been among the largest on record, according to Department of the Interior communications. That includes 62.3 million fish in 2019, nearly 65 million in 2021 and roughly 50 million in 2022. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game put the 2025 inshore run at 56.7 million, 16 percent above the 20-year average and the eleventh straight year above 50 million, with every escapement goal met or exceeded. Its 2026 season summary is not out yet; last year's came Sept. 24.

Brooks Camp hosts about 100 bears each summer, drawn to salmon from roughly late June through September. The Park Service estimates about 2,200 brown bears live in Katmai.

A U.S. Geological Survey synthesis states that climate-driven changes in natural food availability influence bear behavior and demography and create conditions under which interactions with humans are more likely to increase.

The release is the Park Service's own account and contains no outside assessment of this year's cub numbers.

Fat Bear Week, which began in 2014, runs Sept. 22 through Sept. 29, with the bracket released Sept. 18 and no voting on the weekend. Readers can vote for the competition's fattest, most winter-ready bear at fatbearweek.org. Last year more than 1.7 million votes came in from over 100 countries, and Bear 32, nicknamed "Chunk," was crowned champion. A separate Fat Bear Junior event votes on cubs only.