During a visit to Katmai National Park in Alaska, Twitch streamers Maya Higa and Adapt witnessed a brown bear hunting fish from mere feet away. The experience left Adapt clearly unsettled.
An experienced team of guides was leading the visit to the park, and the pair were there with them for a livestream. In one clip, a bear walked close to the group before it suddenly ran into the water to catch a fish.
“My heart is beating out of my chest,” Adapt said once the bear had moved away. “I thought it was over.”
The Bear Passed Within Feet of the Group
The trip also saw another near-miss with a brown bear. Before this incident, an earlier encounter brought a brown bear close to Maya, Adapt and the rest of their group, passing within feet of where they sat.
Maya turned to their guide and asked if they ought to circle along with the creature as it moved around them.
“No, we’re good,” the guide responded, with the group remaining in place as the bear continued past them. Adapt could then be heard letting out a huge sigh of relief once the animal had wandered away.
Adapt’s Reaction to the Close Call
The most anxious part of the stream came when the bear ran into the water to catch its fish. Adapt’s heart was pounding, and his sigh of relief after the second meeting with the bear showed how close the group had come.
Katmai’s Bear Population Is Large
Brown bear encounters happen often at Katmai. About 2,200 of these animals make their home across the park and preserve, drawn by the park’s annual salmon runs, which support one of the highest concentrations of brown bears on Earth.
Why the Bears Ignore Visitors
The guide was questioned by Maya during the stream, with the question being why the bears seemed so at ease around people.
The guide explained “We’re in a national park where the bears have been protected from hunting and so they have been habituated [to humans], and there’s a lot of visitors to the park,”.
The following is a summary of the key points covered:
- The opening line introduces the subject with an “Eventually they have come to trust the way we behave, where we sit, same places, year after year. We’re not really part of the equation here. It’s just the fish and the bears, and so they’ve learned to ignore us.”, which sets the tone for what follows.
- It then moves on to describe the core argument, supported by specific evidence throughout.
- The closing section ties everything together, restating the main claim and its implications.
Coastal Bears Differ From Inland Grizzlies
The guide made clear that the sheer amount of food found in Katmai supports the bears there, and that this helps explain why the coastal brown bears act differently from inland grizzlies.
“This particular bear, even though it’s a brown bear, has access to abundant food sources, not like the North American grizzly bear,” they said. “You wouldn’t want to be, anywhere else in the world, in close proximity to a bear like this.”
The National Park Service has noted that the brown bears of Katmai tend to react to humans and other bears at shorter distances than inland grizzlies do, which is likely due to the park’s abundant supply of salmon.
The Salmon Runs That Feed the Bears
Brown bears gather at Katmai in huge numbers during the annual salmon runs, which sustain one of the densest concentrations of these animals anywhere on Earth, according to the National Park Service.
Park Rules Keep Visitors and Bears Safe
Guides and park staff instruct visitors to stay calm, give the animal room, and follow their directions if a bear comes near on its own. Park rules typically keep people at least 50 yards away from a bear and at least 50 yards away from one eating a concentrated food source like spawning salmon.
What Visitors Should Know
The National Park Service provides straightforward advice for those making plans to visit Katmai.
- Never approach a bear within 50 yards
- Do not remain within 50 yards of a bear feeding on spawning salmon
- If a bear approaches you, stay calm and give it space
- Follow the directions of guides and park staff at all times
While the bears in the park are accustomed to human presence, they remain wild creatures. Keeping a respectful distance from them is the surest path to a safe stay in the park.
Source: dexerto.com