Katmai-Bear-Fan @katmaibearfan - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
Katmai-Bear-Fan
@katmaibearfan
he/they || Brown Bear Enjoyer || not affiliated in any way with Explore, KNP&P or the Katmai Conservancy || photos from explore.org's live cams unless stated otherwise
I liveblog about the Katmai National Park Brown Bear live cams on explore.org when they are active -- from roughly mid June to mid October -- because I love these bears so much I needed somewhere I could yell about them!
I'm just a fan -- I am not affiliated with KNP&P, Explore.org, or The Katmai Conservancy. All photos are from the explore.org brown bear cams unless otherwise stated.
If you're new to the bear cams, start here!
About this blog:
Blog FAQ, My Blog's Tag System, Bear Terminology I Use, Trigger Warnings / Content Policy
My Favorite Fat Bear Before/After Photos
Specific Bear Content:
Bears I've Posted About: Monitored, Transient
Family Trackers: 2024, 2025, 2026
Fat Bear Week Finalists: 2014-2017, 2018-2024
Fat Bear Junior Finalists: 2021-2024
Explore.org Content:
Bear Cams, Youtube Channel
Katmai Conservancy/KNP&P links:
Donate, Shop, Katmai Flickr Page
Unofficial Katmai Highlights Channels on Youtube:
Cruiser, JMcNature, McKate
Unofficial Bearcam Wiki:
Unofficial Bear Book
Misc:
LunaCre's Daily Recap Gifs, 2021-Present
Labeled map of the falls + the cams locations on the river
Today is the day that we find out when the bear cams are coming online! It will be announced during the More To Explore live chat today, which begins at 12pm eastern / 9am pacific.
When it gets closer to the start time, i will reblog this post with a link to the chat.
I'm very excited -- the season is almost upon us!!
The main purpose of this chat is to introduce the new team members working at explore, and to give updates about the various baby birds on the live cams. The announcement regarding the bear cams will probably happen at the end of the chat.
so the update is that the repair people are in Katmai, and we should have a date for the cams to go live very soon -- he said we could get a date anywhere from later tonight to the end of this week, likely depending on how the repairs go and how fast they can get them working. Basically, as soon as they know they will tell us.
For some specifics, they mentioned the crew is adding power to the falls cam system, upgrading some other camera systems, and repairing the camera system on dumpling mountain.
Today is the day that we find out when the bear cams are coming online! It will be announced during the More To Explore live chat today, which begins at 12pm eastern / 9am pacific.
When it gets closer to the start time, i will reblog this post with a link to the chat.
I'm very excited -- the season is almost upon us!!
The main purpose of this chat is to introduce the new team members working at explore, and to give updates about the various baby birds on the live cams. The announcement regarding the bear cams will probably happen at the end of the chat.
so the update is that the repair people are in Katmai, and we should have a date for the cams to go live very soon -- he said we could get a date anywhere from later tonight to the end of this week, likely depending on how the repairs go and how fast they can get them working. Basically, as soon as they know they will tell us.
For some specifics, they mentioned the crew is adding power to the falls cam system, upgrading some other camera systems, and repairing the camera system on dumpling mountain.
This is not a complete guide -- check my pinned post for more in-depth information! My Bear Terminology I Use and My Tagging System Explainer posts are both going to be helpful for people seeking more information.
So, like, how do the cams work?
First, a link to the bear cams, so you know where to find them. Next -- there are many cameras located around Brooks River, and there is a handy labeled map here. There are six main bear cameras -- three cameras near the waterfall, Brooks Falls (BF), Brooks Falls Low (BFL) and Riffles (RF), and three cams downriver, Kat's River View (KRV), River Watch (RW), and the Underwater Salmon Cam (UW). In addition, there is a camera on Dumpling Mountain (DM) that has a lovely view of the whole Brooks Camp area, and a camera on the Naknek River (NR) that sees beautiful sunsets, as well as beluga whales in the off season! You can switch between these cams by clicking on the one you want to move to -- they're located under the livestream you're currently watching.
The cameras are controlled remotely by volunteer camera operators for Explore, called CamOps. They do not read chat during their shifts, so don't tag them in anything or try to tell them what to do. They are trained, they have guidelines they must follow, and they have a lot of experience doing this -- the Katmai CamOp positions at Explore are highly coveted, and they have to work on other wildlife cams for a while before they are allowed to work the Katmai cams. They'll post in chat when the shift changes, so give them a heartfelt "thank you!" for donating their time to let us see all the lovely things these bears have to offer!
The cams are hosted on Explore.org, which has so many other livestreams! i only really frequent the Katmai Cams, but I do pop in to check on the Walrus and Puffin cams from time to time! Though you don't need an account to watch any of the cams, I highly suggest making one -- especially if you want to take snapshots! If you are logged in, any snapshots you take can be saved to your gallery on explore, so you don't even have to download anything.
In addition, being logged in means you can comment in the chat underneath the livestream, though you can view comments without an account. This is helpful for lots of reasons, but especially for identifying bears and getting answers to any questions you might have. Don't be anxious, come say hi -- We're all here because we love these bears, and we're always happy to see new faces! There are a few folks in the explore chat who are incredibly good at identifying bears. Genuinely, I am an amateur, and a lot of the IDs I post here are crowdsourced from them.
The shape of the season
June is when the cams turn on, and it's quiet -- the bears are returning to the area after hibernation, so they're still sleepy, and the salmon haven't arrived yet. Sows that gave birth over the winter will return with their brand new spring cubs, and sows who enter into estrus will emancipate any cubs they have. It's also mating season (more on that later), which means fighting, playing, courting, and mating are all common. Oh, and the bears will generally look skrungled -- this is because they are shedding out of their winter coats and into their summer ones.
July is hectic -- the salmon arrive, and with them, a ton of activity. The run comes in pulses, slowly increasing in size and frequency until it hits a crescendo and then tapers off again. You can expect up to 30 bears to be at the falls during the peak, all feasting on the hundreds of thousands of salmon that descend upon the river! As the summer days in Alaska are very long -- Katmai peaks at about 18 hours and 20 minutes of daylight on the solstice -- you can find active bears on the cams essentially whenever during this time. Most subadults and sows with young cubs stay in the lower river because it is less crowded, and therefore safer. Up at the falls, you can expect to see lots of boars and single sows, with the boars frequently arguing and fighting over the best fishing spots.
August is quiet again. The salmon are almost completely gone, so many bears leave to go fish elsewhere -- "August Walkabouts", we call them -- and some bears who leave during this time may not come back again until next season. The ones who stick around spend their days fishing what they can, playing, and resting after the chaotic, salmon-filled month they just had.
September is the Fall Feast -- the bodies of the salmon who have spawned and died begin floating downriver. These salmon are not as nutritious as the ones caught in July, but they are still food, so the bears do still eat them. Many (but not all) bears return from their walkabouts, and other bears appear for their first visit of the season. Most of the action here is in the lower river, where you may see some bears diving for fish. Its still slower and less crowded than July, but its more activity than in August.
October sees the end of the fall feast, and the beginning of hibernation season. The bears who are still around will mostly just be chilling & hanging out. there could be some epic nap sessions, or late-season playing. Subadults and Sows with cubs will be the first to go to den, followed by sows without cubs, and finally the boars. Also, October is generally when Fat Bear Week happens, so keep an eye out for that!
By early November, most of the bears will have gone to den, the cams will shut off, and a season of bear watching will conclude once more.
Coat Changes
The bears will, broadly speaking, start the summer much lighter than they end up being by the time fall rolls around. As a result, many bears will look totally different in June than they do in September. Some bears, like 128 Grazer, may only darken a bit or darken unevenly, but others like 903 Gully or 131 Marshmallow will darken a lot. This change will happen slowly, over the course of the summer. This means that bears that stay around for August are pretty easy to track through these coat changes, but bears who leave and then come back in September can be tricky to identify if you aren't familiar with what their fall coat looks like.
If you want to know what a specific bear looks like in early summer vs fall, I suggest looking through my tag for them and taking note of the dates on the post. All bears are tagged by their number, and separately by their nickname (if they have one). For example, 131 Marshmallow is tagged both "#bear131" and "#marshmallow", but 856 is just tagged "#bear856".
Bear Pregnancy, Mating, and Cubs
Cubs are born in mid-winter, roughly late January to early February, while their mother is hibernating. They are very small when they are born, weighing about 1 pound (0.45kg). By the time we see them on the cams, they have already done quite a lot of growing!
But how do we end up with cubs? Well, its quite different from human pregnancy! Mating season is in June and early July, and during this time you will likely see bears courting each other. A sow in estrus gives off pheromones that alert boars to their presence, and boars who are interested will begin following that scent. This courting chase can last for quite a while -- sometimes up to a week -- with the boar following close behind the sow (or, less commonly, a sow following behind a boar).
Sows and boars both will mate with multiple partners during mating season, and though some particularly dominant boars may attempt to keep a particular sow from mating with anyone else for the duration of her estrus period, they usually are not successful. As a result, cubs from the same litter may have different fathers!
Though mating season is in June, a phenomena known as delayed implantation means that sows don't actually "become pregnant" until after they go to den for the winter -- and only if they have enough fat stored for them and their potential cubs to survive the whole ordeal. In addition, heavier sows tend to give birth to larger litters, with the largest sows having litters of up to 4 cubs!
Fighting
There's gonna be bear fights. Sometimes the bear fights get nasty. Usually, the bear fights are between adults, most often boars, but adult boars do sometimes attack, and occasionally kill, cubs. You can see my trigger tag policy here.
For the livecams themselves, though -- CamOps will not shy away from violence. In fact, you can generally expect them to focus on violence when it happens, so if you see a fight starting and don't want to see it, you should probably move to a different camera! While many fights between adults end with "only a few scratches" (which may still be big enough to scar), some fights will end with nasty looking injuries that can leave big, lasting scars -- which the biggest boars often end up covered in by their old age.
It is often helpful to keep in mind that these fights are part of their life. It is how brown bears are. Big injuries can look really awful, but they are brown bears, and they are built to survive these things. Cub deaths are always deeply sad to us humans, especially when they happen on camera or at the hands of a well-loved boar, but they are also normal and expected. Only roughly half of cubs at Katmai survive -- though i must stress that most cubs who die do so of starvation or illness, not injury -- and you must be ready to confront this fact if you want to watch the bear cams.
In Conclusion
I'll add to this post as I think of more stuff, other things to link to, etc. Oh, and welcome to the bear cam community, we're very happy to have you join us!
In honor of the announcement today (starting in just 15 minutes, from the time of this reblog), here's a broad overview of the bear cams that i wrote last year. It's got the jist of everything from how cubs and mating season work to what the salmon run looks like!
if you have ever wondered what it looks like when a cub gets emancipated, Cruiser just posted this video (originally posted to Instagram by nic.m.t, re-uploaded with credit and permission) of 128jr getting emancipated by 128 Grazer.
Today is the day that we find out when the bear cams are coming online! It will be announced during the More To Explore live chat today, which begins at 12pm eastern / 9am pacific.
When it gets closer to the start time, i will reblog this post with a link to the chat.
I'm very excited -- the season is almost upon us!!
The main purpose of this chat is to introduce the new team members working at explore, and to give updates about the various baby birds on the live cams. The announcement regarding the bear cams will probably happen at the end of the chat.
Today is the day that we find out when the bear cams are coming online! It will be announced during the More To Explore live chat today, which begins at 12pm eastern / 9am pacific.
When it gets closer to the start time, i will reblog this post with a link to the chat.
I'm very excited -- the season is almost upon us!!
If you like cute animal live cams, may i suggest the Seal Island Puffin Cams on explore.org? The link is to the Puffin Loafing Ledge view (which is where the above pic is from) but there are several other views, including a burrow view with a brand new puffling that just hatched yesterday!
today (6/14/26) is the final celebration day over on explore.org, and the theme is Hopes & Predictions!
i hope for another plentiful salmon year, lots of babies, and big groups of subadults hanging out and playing together. i hope that 602 sticks around for the whole summer again, and that lots of the new bears from last season stick around this year, too.
for predictions, i think that the 803 boys will get emancipated and get into a bunch of fun trouble together. i think that since 284 and 901 both have spring cubs, the bear management staff at brooks camp is going to have a busy and frustrating year. i think that the 26 cubs are going to be adorable and very social yearlings. I think 128jr, who was emancipated recently, is going to have a wonderful time on her own.
what about you folks? any hopes or predictions for the year ahead?
today (6/14/26) is the final celebration day over on explore.org, and the theme is Hopes & Predictions!
i hope for another plentiful salmon year, lots of babies, and big groups of subadults hanging out and playing together. i hope that 602 sticks around for the whole summer again, and that lots of the new bears from last season stick around this year, too.
for predictions, i think that the 803 boys will get emancipated and get into a bunch of fun trouble together. i think that since 284 and 901 both have spring cubs, the bear management staff at brooks camp is going to have a busy and frustrating year. i think that the 26 cubs are going to be adorable and very social yearlings. I think 128jr, who was emancipated recently, is going to have a wonderful time on her own.
what about you folks? any hopes or predictions for the year ahead?
Dumpling Mountain is still down, as are all of the Brooks River cams -- but we will have more information about when those cams will go live on Monday, 6/15/26
