The Bulky Bears of Fat Bear Week 2021 | Hacker News Reader

The Bulky Bears of Fat Bear Week 2021

smithsonianmag.com

128 pointssamizdis46 comments

I've never been that much of a animal watcher my entire life, but on a lark I was able to visit Katmai National Park in Alaska this past year where these bears are from. I'm now a bear fan. Highly, HIGHLY recommend checking out if you have spare bandwidth for it.

It's pretty amazing to see tens of bears at any given time along Brooks Falls and by the lower river and have them kinda roam around the nature preserve, while us humans are boxed into little observation platforms, Jurrasic-Park-style. And when you're not in the fenced areas and are along a trail, bears wander around and calmly claim right-of-way to all your paths as you basically socially-distance yourselves from them at all times.

(Visitors here get "the bear talk" when arriving, get best practices on being super boring to bears, and in return bears here are conditioned to ignore humans pretty much and go about their days eating large quantities of fish and berries.)

Katmai: https://www.nps.gov/katm/index.htm Bearcam: https://www.nps.gov/katm/learn/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm

OT, but whenever I think of bears eating things, I just imagine Yogi Bear saying "pic-a-nic baskets", and it makes me smile :)

[1] A topic I've been up close & personal with. Closer than anyone would believe if they hadn't been there.

On Kodiak Island there are thousands of grizzlies and very few residents or tourists. You can't drive there and AFAIK the cruise ships don't go there. It's possible to get within a few feet of the bears IF you're with a licensed guide (who has a rifle). I've seen Nature docs on TV since I did this, so I know there are people who approach the bears and live to tell.

I took all these photos and the video myself. Those videos you see of bears just snatching fish out of the water are for tourists; most of the bears have to work for their fish.

But yeah, there's so much salmon that they just eat the fatty parts and leave the rest.

[1] https://photos.app.goo.gl/mXMHAjDyQNDjFqjw8

> It's possible to get within a few feet of the bears IF you're with a licensed guide (who has a rifle).

So.... that sounds like the idea is that you get to push the boundaries of the bear's personal space; and if you cross the line and the bear gets defensive, the guide will kill it.

That seems pretty unfair to the bears. How about we just keep our distance?

Maybe "we" ought to inform ourselves before mouthing off. Maybe we should watch some shows on Nature?

If you thought about this for half a second, you'd realize that guides are not killing bears, or else they'd lose their licenses and no one would be allowed to do it anymore.

Is that Momma bear charging looking at you, or just happening to be in line going after a fish? Either way, great shot!

I'm not sure which shot you're talking about it, but they're always going after salmon (this was a zoom lens, of course).

Like I said, they quite often come up empty when they go for a fish. I'm not saying it's hard work, but it's not like pulling up to a drive-through window.

"The bears eat around 90 pounds of fish, berries, small mammals, and vegetation each day to pack on the pounds necessary to survive months of winter hibernation."

90 pounds a day!

Anyone have an idea of what percentage is fish vs berries vs mammals vs vegetation and have an estimate on how many calories that would be?

The vast majority is plant matter. It wastes a lot of energy to chase prey. Plants don't move much. Last I read it was on the order of 80% plants, with a lot of insects being most of the meat.

You may be right that the majority is plant matter, but in salmon season bears gather at salmon runs and waste little energy in snatching fish as they leap up the cascades. See [1]. (Although individual bears do compete for the best fishing spots, they are in a "fish in a barrel" situation when they get one. They don't have to chase anything, just grab and chew.)

[1] https://explore.org/livecams/brown-bears/brown-bear-salmon-c...

Edit to add:

Here's an article [2] from 2018, How many salmon will a bear eat?

Excerpt: Adult male bears on Kodiak ate the most salmon on average, consuming an incredible 6,146 pounds (2,788 kg) per bear per year! Adult females ate 3,007 pounds (1,364 kg). Salmon consumption varied among subadult bears, independent juvenile bears between 2.5 and 5.5 years old. Subadult females ate 1,248 pounds (566 kg) while subadult males ate 1,305 pounds (592 kg) of salmon per bear per year.

[2] https://medium.com/@exploreorg/how-many-salmon-will-a-bear-e...

The bears catch so many salmon on some rivers that they eat only the most nutritious parts and leave the rest of the carcass for scavengers.

Correct. See my post and [1]. I saw this behavior myself.

It's not just standing and snatching fish out of the stream, though. Most bears have to chase the fish and try to catch them, often failing.

[1] https://photos.app.goo.gl/mXMHAjDyQNDjFqjw8

costs a lot to feed bears. this years salmon price is estimated at $14-20\lb. if we take the average, a bear eats more then $100k a year worth of salmon.

It's cheaper when you buy it near the source.

True, and probably cheaper buying in that kind of bulk. Still an impressive amount of fish.

Also, breaking down plant matter is very energy intensive. Salmon is very close to what animals need, sort of by definition.

While that is true for inland brown/grizzly bears, the coastal brown bears under discussion in this article eat huge quantities of spawning salmon during the summer and early fall.

They get much larger and much fatter than the inland bears as a result.

More than 20% for many inland grizzly bears, e.g. Yellowstone:

  Approximately 45 ± 22% (equation image ± SD) of the assimilated nitrogen consumed by male grizzly bears, 38 ± 20% by female grizzly bears, and 23 ± 7% by male and female black bears came from animal matter.

https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jwm...

Diet varies a lot by region. Figure 7 here: <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bruce-Mclellan/publicat...>

Shows that for female grizzlies without salmon in their diets, % meat seems to vary from around 0% to 60% based on population.

Assimilated nitrogen != calories. Fish are rich in protein; plants have a large share of digestible carbohydrates.

I suppose there might be some zookeeper related scholarly publication out there on the typical diet and calorie needs to maintain an adult grizzly bear at the same body weight year round. I have no idea, but I bet it is a lot.

a quick search found me this:

"During spring and summer, bears eat around 5,000 calories a day, but in the fall, they are trying to eat up to 20,000 calories every day."

Gives me a stomach ache even thinking about it.

Almost as much as two michael phelps

Good luck catching 2 Michael Phelps in the river

If you're interpreting that as 1 Michael Phelps = 10,000 calories, you're in luck! The average humans contain about 125k Calories [0]. Not all easily accessible of course, but fine for a hungry brown bear.

0: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-cannibals-...

Went to my local Fat Bear Week in Guerneville, CA... was not what I expected but made a ton of new friends!

reminded - https://aboutzoos.info/89-news/news-biodiversity/706-how-the...

"How the return of wolves makes bears fat enough for hibernation in Yellowstone"

"A new study suggests that the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park is beginning to bring back a key part of the diet of grizzly bears that has been missing for much of the past century — berries that help bears put on fat before going into hibernation. [...] The researchers found that the level of berries consumed by Yellowstone grizzlies is significantly higher now that shrubs are starting to recover following the re- introduction of wolves, which have reduced over- browsing by elk herds. "

I was fortunate to visit Katmai about a month ago for photography purposes[1], and hanging around the bears was one of the most amazing things I’ve done in my life. The bears I watched caught a fairly large salmon roughly every 30 minutes, almost all day long. It made it easy to even get video[2] of the fish jumping straight into their mouths. They were all almost noticeably fatter when we left!

[1] https://www.instagram.com/p/CULaowjLYBj/

[2] https://www.instagram.com/reel/CUF8Z7_p9po/

I need to get my head out of the stocks - I thought this was talking about the stock market (SPY has been performing pretty poorly this week)

What's somewhat more surprising is just how thin some of the bears were in the before photos. At a distance, it might be possible to mistake them for other animals.

This might be a dumb question, but why do bears hibernate? I get "it's cold and not much food" but these are apex predators yes? Intelligent, no predators themselves. Why stop for half the year? Did they meet humans and so where hunted except for those at higher latitudes?

> If food is present a bear does not have to hibernate, unless it is pregnant or winter conditions are severe enough

https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view...

Until I saw the smithsonian URL I thought for a moment this was about the type of bears that wear leather and drink beer.

Same! Lazy Bear Weekend is always a treat. One of the most committed and community-focused groups around. https://www.lazybearweek.org/

I'm as straight as an arrow, but is there anything more joyful than seeing humans who have found their community? I mean - look at all those smiling, happy people! That's cool - good for them and looks like they support some meaningful charities in the process. Thanks for sharing.

I randomly visited Guerneville to see my then-partner's family, and was surprised to see the streets full of happily ambling bears (bipedal and leather clad). Takes one by surprise when this happens to you in the Norcal forest and not, say, Folsom St in SF

...same

the camera adds pounds, you know

i used to live in a place where brown bears would cruise down the street and get within 10 feet of you regularly and had no idea they slimmed down so much over the winter. (maybe the human presence was the reason why?)

nature is so cool!

I think the Alaskan bears have a longer hibernation than bears in southern climates, so the weight change is more dramatic.

I'm in this article and I don't like it

Wow never knew this was a thing.. how glorious

It's the Bulky Bears now?

Man, the Mendelev Effect has gone into full overdrive this year.

What is the Mendeleev effect here? That the weight of the bears shows some periodicity?

Pretty sure they meant Mandela effect, a Berenstain Bears joke.

It's the "Mandela" effect here and now? Oh man, the shifts just keep getting bigger....

I can't tell if you legitimately think the name has shifted (it hasn't) or are continuing the joke.

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