Why McNeil River Falls?
While some people differentiate among coastal brown bears, grizzly bears, and the bears on the Kodiak archipelago, we are using grizzlies and brown bears interchangeably.
It happens every summer. On any given day from late June to early September, close to 50 brown bears at a time converge on Alaska’s McNeil River Falls. There they feed on the abundance of salmon running through its tumbling currents along the McNeil River. And during the season, small groups of people quietly observe them, striking what may be the perfect balance between wildlife and humans.
That formula has worked at McNeil River State Game Sanctuary since the mid-1970s, when the Alaska Department of Fish and Game—with protection of the bears in mind—began limiting viewing access at McNeil River Falls and nearby Mikfik Creek to ten people per day, selected by lottery. But why is this wilderness so special?
Established in 1967, the 200-square-mile (518 square kilometers) sanctuary protects the world’s largest concentration of wild brown bears (also known as grizzlies), and in late June they begin to congregate at McNeil River Falls to indulge in a salmon feeding frenzy. As salmon migrate upstream toward their spawning grounds, the rocks and boulders that form the falls slow them down and—along with the shallow depth—make them vulnerable to capture. For the bears, it’s as if they hear a dinner bell ringing. Few rivers in this scenic area of the Alaskan peninsula have such ideal fishing sites, so brown bears—including mothers with spring cubs emerging from the den for their first summer—gather at the falls, drawn by their appetite for chum salmon.
Photograph by Kennan Ward, Corbis
“Food is the name of the game for bears,” says regional refuge manager and bear biologist John Hechtel. “They need to eat large quantities of high-quality food to build up enough fat to carry them through five to seven months of winter hibernation.”
And the name of the game at the sanctuary is human presence with a gentle touch. Accompanied by one or two sanctuary staffers, visitors with four-day passes hike to a viewing pad, where they spend a number of morning and evening hours in what is essentially a living laboratory, observing with little intrusion the intricate behavior and complex social hierarchy of these beautiful intelligent creatures.
Still, humans are the greatest threat to the brown bear population. “Hunting of all species is prohibited by state law in the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary,” says Joe Meehan, Lands and Refuge Program coordinator at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. “And hunting of brown bears is currently closed in the adjoining refuge by regulations adopted by the Alaska Board of Game.”
However, the board has approved hunting on lands adjacent to McNeil for 2007. “We do know that McNeil bears range outside the sanctuary and refuge boundary into areas that are open to legal hunting,” Meehan continues. “In all likelihood, some McNeil bears are legally harvested in that area.”
Even though bear numbers are generally up in Alaska, they are down at McNeil River Falls. “We don’t know why the numbers have dropped,” says Meehan. “We can only speculate about the role hunting plays in the decline.”
Although not a threat to brown bears in the true sense, the variable number of salmon running through McNeil River each year does determine how many bears show up at the falls. “Bears go where the fish are plentiful,” says McNeil fishery research biologist Ted Otis. “It’s not as though salmon runs are a static resource. Annual weather conditions can cause the eggs that reside in freshwater gravel beds to freeze, ultimately affecting the number of adults that will return.” Predators can also eat salmon smolt, and ocean conditions directly impact the production of zooplankton and forage fish on which juvenile salmon feed, causing the fish to starve.
Despite such drawbacks, the National Park Service and the Pratt Museum in Homer, Alaska—partners in making WildCam Grizzlies possible—are committed to educating the public and fostering the conservation of McNeil’s brown bears and their habitat. “I’m very proud of McNeil’s approach to management,” Hechtel says. “We’re able to protect the bears while providing what many visitors consider one of the richest experiences of their lives.”