Determining bear activity levels in the lower Brooks River, an area of high visitor use in Katmai National Park, Alaska
Hamon TR, Kim HS, Olson TL, Harrington T. 2007. Determining bear activity levels in the lower Brooks River, an area of high visitor use in Katmai National Park, Alaska. National Park Service
Brooks River, a salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) migratory route and spawning stream in Katmai National Park, is an important feeding area for brown bears (Ursus arctos), as well as a focal point for visitor use in the park. Currently, a floating bridge provides access between Brooks Camp facilities on the North side of the lower Brooks River and bear viewing platforms and other facilities on the south side of the river. Access to the bridge from the north side of the river is via a trail that parallels a section of the lower river that has been documented as a productive bear feeding area. It has been suggested that repositioning the bridge downriver of its current location could reduce the number of human-bear interactions and bear-related human-traffic delays, in part because the downriver location would allow more direct access to the bridge without the need to walk along the river bank. To evaluate whether bear activity was lower downstream of the current bridge location, we used time-interval photography to record bears present within 50 m of the current and the proposed bridge locations during July and September 2004. We found that during September all measures of bear activity were higher within 50 m of the current bridge location than within 50 m of the proposed downriver site. We suggest that repositioning the bridge to the proposed downriver site could provide more direct access to the bridge on the north side of the river and could reduce bear-caused human traffic delays because 1) people would no longer have to travel parallel to the river adjacent to a known productive bear feeding area, and 2) the bridge would be relocated to a site with relatively less bear activity. We recommend that the effects of any change in the location or nature of the bridge be assessed through documentation and comparison of bear use patterns using methods similar to those employed for this study.