ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A new video initiative is bringing the famed brown bears of Alaska’s Katmai National Park to your computer or smartphone.
Without having to go there, you’ll be able to watch mature bears compete for salmon at Brook Falls and other sites and cubs tumbling over each other as they play. Starting Tuesday, a live Web stream (http://is.gd/bfPAs8) will allow the public to see the brown bears in their natural habitat.
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“I think it’s an unparalleled opportunity for people to get that front-row seat of the lives of the bears at Brooks Camp,” said Roy Wood, chief of interpretation for Katmai National Park and Preserve.
The project is a partnership with explore.org, which set up four high-definition cameras in Katmai, spokesman Jason Damata told The Associated Press. Three of them are at existing viewing stands where bear fans come to watch the animals.
The cameras provide access to a national park that is difficult to reach and expensive for most tourists. It is about 275 miles southwest of Anchorage, but no roads lead to Katmai. A trip there involves multiple airplanes and a lot of advanced planning: It’s hard to get a lodge reservation at Brooks Camp before 2014. Camping is allowed, but on a reservation system that goes online Jan. 5.
“It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money, and the webcams will make it accessible to anyone with access to a computer, a smartphone, a tablet device,” Wood said.
The park draws just under 10,000 visitors a year, but about 2,200 bears live in Katmai National Park. About 100 of them are in the Brooks Camp area.
One camera is at Brooks Falls, where the bigger male bears compete for salmon, some while the fish are trying to jump the falls. The bears eat mostly the brains and eggs of these fish and let the carcasses flow downstream. This is the prime viewing area now.
The second camera is about 150 yards away, where females and cubs eat the fish scraps floating downstream. The third is at the lower falls, where bears will congregate later this summer when dead salmon float downstream after spawning.
The fourth is on Dumpling Mountain and provides an aerial view of the entire ecosystem.
“The placement of the cams is fantastic,” Wood said. “I mean, they’ll be close enough, many of the bears you’ll be able to identity and follow the individual bears as they use the salmon at Brooks Falls and raise their young here.”
The cameras are powered by solar and wind energy. Microwave signals are sent to the Dumpling Mountain camera, which are then sent to King Salmon, Alaska, where a T1 connection allows for the high-definition cameras to be broadcast to the Internet. The best action of the four cameras will be broadcast.
They are the latest addition to a list of live-streaming webcams in the Pearls of the Planet initiative for explore.org, underwritten by the Annenberg Foundation.
Other webcam subjects include osprey off the Maine coast.
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