Wildlife

Katmai’s bear cam is back: Watch the live stream

Wildlife lovers around the world can once again tune in to a live stream of Katmai National Park and Preserve's salmon-grabbing brown bears.

Katmai National Park is home to one the world's highest concentration of brown bears, according to the National Park Service.

The park's bear cam is a popular feature that, during the height of the summer season, is viewed by tens of thousands of people on a given day, the park said in a release.

The live stream camera is aimed at the Brooks River, where many iconic photographs have been taken of salmon jumping straight into the mouths of waiting bears.

On Aug. 29, Katmai National Park tweeted that most bears leave the area in August, only to return with "significantly more body fat" in September.

[Here's what it takes to keep Katmai's famous bear cams running]

You can watch the Brooks Falls bear cam at Explore.org or on YouTube.

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The park also has a free e-book that outlines the lives of some of the individual animals. "Every bear has a story," the website says.

Last year, 49 different bears were seen in the Brooks River area at the peak of the season, according to the National Park Service.

This year, many subadult bears – usually 2.5 and 5 years old – are expected to be seen this summer. These bears "tend to move about erratically and may be of great interest to many viewers," the release says.

"This is going to be a great summer for people to watch the cameras," Anela Ramos, district interpreter with the National Park Service, said in a release. "Especially with so many young bears running around this season, the cams provide a remarkable opportunity to increase our understanding of the behavior of brown bears."

Katmai National Park, established in 1918, is celebrating its centennial year. The park's headquarters in the community of King Salmon is about a 290-mile flight from Anchorage, according to the park.

Laurel Andrews

Laurel Andrews was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch News and Alaska Dispatch. She left the ADN in October 2018.

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