I was excited to start my first day of real “field observation” with the webcams set up along the Brooks River at Katmai National Park, to kick off my brown bear watching project. I had checked out all of the available webcams casually, to make sure they would work, primarily to ensure good enough resolution for me to be able to rely on them for field observation. But I had overlooked the time difference between my home in New Orleans and the “bearcams” in Alaska. So the first time I had set aside for field observations, it was too early in the morning Alaska time for me to see the bears very well. Still, I was able to get a few minutes of bear-watching in before I had to go about the rest of my day.
The live feed at Brooks Falls was the only camera with any bear activity at the time I checked in this morning. I saw two bears at the falls, at spots the park refers to as “the far pool” and “the jacuzzi”. Both were there for only a few moments. The one at the far pool (background of this image) was there when I turned on the feed, though it took me time to realize the shape was that of a bear and not a rock, as it wasn’t moving very much. Clearly from this video I was unable to tell if the bears were male or female, or any other distinguishing features, so I will call them Bear A (far pool) and Bear B (jacuzzi). Bear A was standing on top of some of the rocks, not in the water, and turned around a few times toward the falls and then looking downstream, and then turned back again. 
I then saw the second bear (Bear B) come in from the bottom right side of the screen. Bear B settled at the spot known as the jacuzzi (foreground area, near the base of where the falls hit). The bear kept looking around, including behind/downstream of their location, the entire time, rather than keeping their eyes on the falls. I don’t believe it successfully caught any fish during the time I was watching, and it only stayed in that spot for maybe 5-6 minutes before turning and walking back off-screen, slightly downstream and toward the bank of the river again.
Bear A stayed was at the far pool the entire time, but because of the darkness it was difficult to keep track of it as it moved around in that area, so I was not able to tell if it was able to catch any fish or not.
So far it’s been difficult to capture any real information other than a) this is not the best time of day for me to try to watch the bears via video; and b) the bears seem willing to share some of the space at the falls with other bears, though I don’t have enough information about the bears to know whether they share with members of the same or opposite sex, age differences, or how common this is overall. I also know that the physical observation area for visiting tourists is near or at the same location as the camera, so it is possible that the bear fishing at the far pool is more wary of human interaction than the bear fishing at the jacuzzi.
I found some additional information on the favored fishing spots at Brooks Falls in the Katmai National Park eBook Bears of Brooks River 2015. They include a helpful diagram including the names of the spots I’ve mentioned, such as the jacuzzi, the far pool, and “the lip”, a spot on the top side of the falls, as favorite spots where the bears will sit to fish.
Ports in the Storm 