How were these cameras installed?

These cameras were installed with the help of T3 Alliance. T3 is a non profit educational leadership program that supports efforts to foster innovative, inspiring, and creative learning environments for young people in underserved communities. Students from the local area researched, designed and installed the live cameras.

What are the weights of:

Brown bear male 500 – 900, max. 1200 in areas like Katmai

Brown bear female 600 – 700 lbs.

Black bear male 150 – 400 lbs.

Black bear female 125 – 250 lbs.

How many salmon will the bear eat in a day?

10 lbs or more, they can gain from 1-8 lbs a day

What is the life expectancy of Brown and Black bears?

Brown bears: 20-30

Black bears: 15-30

At what age is a bear considered an adult?

Bears are generally considered adults once they are 5-6 years old. The distinction is somewhat arbitrary, but like many other animals, adulthood is defined by reaching sexual maturity. Like in humans, there is no set age when this happens, but it generally occurs around the bear’s sixth year.

What is a subadult bear?

Subadults are young bears independent of their mothers but have not reached sexual maturity.

Black bear cubs will generally only stay with their mothers for one summer and will hibernate with them to then get kicked off sometime during the spring.

Brown bears will usually stay with their mothers for around 3 summers, sometimes less sometimes more.

How big are cubs when they are born?

Bears are small when they are born. They average about 1 pound (.45 kg) at birth about the size of a potato.

Are Black Bears afraid of Brown Bears?

Yes. Brown bears are significantly larger than Black bears, and much stronger.

How do the bears interact with each other?

Bears are generally not territorial. They defend their own personal space bubbles but not a territory. Each bear’s personal space bubble is a different size, some allow closer while some need greater distances and will react when infringed from a further distance. Their personal space bubble also changes and will get bigger or smaller with greater food availability or scarcity.

- Males can be cannibalistic of cubs and each other, so females with cubs avoid them.

- Females with cubs can become aggressive to protect their young; other bears may

avoid them as well.

- Anan bears develop a pecking order through the summer with posturing, vocalizations, and occasional fights. Bears establish a hierarchy which allows them to interact with each other without violence (usually). In the hierarchy, subordinate bears typically yield space and/or resources to more dominant bears. In general, brown bears are more dominant, even juvenile brown bears depending on the size of the black bear, large and mature males are next most dominant, followed by females with cubs, other adult males and females, and then subadults. A bear’s place in the hierarchy is based on its health, age, size, and disposition. The hierarchy changes and the rank of a bear can change from year to year or even season to season, we’ve even seen it change within a week.

Do male bears really kill cubs?

Yes, but overall infanticide in bears occurs rarely.

Several reasons have been proposed to explain why bears kill cubs.

• Bears might kill cubs for food. Although, cubs are sometimes killed and not eaten.

• Wanting to mate with a female bear may drive a male to kill her cubs. Female bears will not go into estrus as long as they are nursing. However, bears are promiscuous. A female may mate with several males so there is no guarantee that a male bear that kills a cub would actually be the father to the cub, nor is there any guarantee that the male bear would even have access to the female.

• Possibly some bears view cubs as potential competitors in the future.

• Female bears have been observed killing cubs as well, so the behavior is not restricted to males.

Why do the bears sometimes only eat part of the fish?

If you see bears only eating the skin, brains, and eggs of a salmon, they are practicing good energy economics. As a bear fills up on salmon, it only eats certain parts of the fish looking for the fattier parts. This behavior has been nicknamed “high-grading.” When salmon are not abundant or hard to catch then bears will not be as selective and will most often eat the whole fish.

What wildlife can be seen here?

- Black bears, brown bears, mink, martens, otters, red squirrels, porcupines, wolverines, voles and mice are terrestrial mammals that live near or visit Anan.

- Harbor seals, sea lions, orcas, porpoises, dolphins, and humpback whales are marine

mammals that occasionally visit Anan.

- Bald eagles, short billed gulls, rufous hummingbird, common raven, varied thrush, and

common mergansers are a few birds that frequent Anan.

- Amphibians such as the rough-skinned newt have been seen along the trail

How can you tell the difference between a female and a male bear?

Either by seeing genitalia or watching the bear urinate. It can sometimes be hard to see genitalia, but urination is a good indicator. Male bears urinate straight down between their hind legs while females urinate out behind their back legs. If a bear has cubs, then it is a female.

What is that white string thing hanging out of the bear’s rear end?

- It’s a tapeworm. Bears are host to many parasites, including the broad fish tapeworm (Diphyllobothrium latum)

- The larval forms are found in crustaceans which are eaten by fish which become

infected as intermediate hosts (mature worms encyst in the muscle of the fish).

- Infected fish are then consumed

- Great reminder to cook your fish properly

How strong are bears’ senses?

Their eyesight is about equal to human vision and they have color vision too, most likely to see berries.

A brown bear’s hearing is also likely equivalent to human hearing.

Smell is most important sense a bear has. No other mammal seems to have a more acute sense of smell. Bears use scent to communicate everything from dominance to their presence in an area to receptivity to mating. Bears rely on their sense of smell like humans rely on eyesight.

How many bears live or visit Anan annually?

• Around 50 - 70 black bears frequent the viewing area annually, with approximately half of them coming very regularly

• Brown bear viewing fluctuates seasonally. We usually only have about 4 - 8 brown bears using the lower falls regularly, but more are found in the upper falls area.

What is the difference between Brown Bears and Grizzly Bears?

Browns and Grizzlies are both Ursus Arctos. The difference between the two is due to where they are commonly found: Browns along the coast and Grizzlies in the interior. Along the coast, Brown bears enjoy abundant and protein rich marine prey. The Brown bears at Anan Creek are typically consuming pink salmon, also called Humpies, making them larger than their interior counterparts. Otherwise, they are the exact same bear.

Why don’t the bears just fish in the calm part of the stream? I see a lot of fish there.

The salmon are pooling there and resting until they go up the falls. Because there is a higher volume of water with less pressure here if a bear tries to go after these fish, they can easily swim away and avoid the bear. However, if they target them in the falls there is nowhere for the fish to escape, making it easiest to go after them there.

What is the human history of Anan?

Fish traps and weirs in the area have been dated at 3,500 years old, and evidence indicates that human occupation may extend as far back as 10,000 years. The first documented occupants were the Stikine Tlingit clans who had summer fish camps here and used Anan Creek’s large salmon spawning run to catch and preserve salmon for their winter food supply. Anan was unique because the large number of salmon available made it possible to have several clans sharing one fish camp. The name Anan is said to mean “Sit down town” in the Tlingit language. Gardens and smokehouses dotted the shores of the lagoon and bay. At low enough tides, the remains of the stakes from ancient fish traps can be seen.

Tlingit use of the area began to wane with the advent of commercial fishing. In the early 1900’s, the Sailor Fishing and Mining Company set up a large fish trap that allowed few fish to make it up the stream. The devastation wrought on the salmon by commercial fishing forced the eventual abandonment of the Tlingit camps. Once Alaska because a state the fishing was regulated which saved the fish stocks.

By 1930 the trail that the Sailor Fishing Co had built was used for wildlife viewing, and over the years the Forest Service implemented more infrastructure for bear viewing.

Which one is side 1 and which is side 2?

Side 1 is the side with the viewing deck and the side with the cameras attached to it so when the Fishing Hole 3 camera pans to the right or down it is looking at side 1, when it pans to the left it is looking at side 2.

Side 2 is the other side of the creek with the caves. The lower falls camera is only showing side 2

The Bears of Anan book mentions 4 Fishing Holes. Which ones are visible on the cams?

You can see Fishing holes 1 and 2 on the lower falls camera. Fishing hole 1 is on the left in front of the large cave and fishing hole 2 is the fishing spot further down to the right.

Fishing hole 3 is the one directly below the camera named that, you can also partly see fishing hole 2 across the creek from this camera as well.

Fishing hole 4 is on the other side of the deck so neither camera can see it. There are potential plans to put another camera there in the future.

Do the bears live in the caves or do they have other dens they go to?

The bears do not live in the caves, they go in there to hide while they eat their fish and the big cave is a good fishing spot. Sometimes mama bears with cubs will stash their cubs in a cave to keep them safe. The cave system is somewhat of a labyrinth so sometimes they enter from one area and you'll see them pop out at another.

During the summer they don't usually use a den, they'll just have daybeds. During the winter they'll use a den but those are usually more uphill. These caves would be too wet to make a comfortable den. Black bears usually den under fallen trees, in hollow trees, or in burrows. Brown bears dig their own den on a sheltered slope, under a large rock, or among the roots of a mature tree and they usually go further up in elevation than the black bears.

Are the brown bears that use the creek considered coastal brown bears?

Yes, for the most part any brown bear that is on a salmon stream is considered a coastal brown bear.

Should we expect to see Harbor seals, sea lions, river otters, mink, wolves on these cams?

The Harbor seals and sea lions wouldn't make it up the creek this far to be caught on the cameras. They are seen in the lagoon or at the entrance to the lagoon by the trailhead.

We have definitely seen river otters and mink going in and out of the caves so the cameras might catch them.

There have been rare sightings of wolves so we are excited to see if maybe they come out more when people aren't there. People can only be onsite from 8am to 6pm. So definitely keep an eye for them and let us know if you see one! We also found a beaver skull near fishing hole 3 once so there may also be beavers, we just have never actually seen one.