The surprising stars of the summer: The bears from Alaska that swept the web
Every summer, as salmon migration begins in Alaska, millions of people around the world tune in to a live feed documenting grizzly bears hunting in the state's national park. This is how a small nature camera project became one of the biggest web phenomena of the last decade.
If you thought the World Cup was the most intriguing broadcast of the last few weeks, think again. While football fans were following the action on the pitch, millions of people around the world were glued to a different kind of broadcast — a live feed from a national park in Alaska, where grizzly bears try to catch salmon leaping up the river.
Behind the phenomenon is "Bear Cam," the live broadcast project of the nature organization Explore.org, which operates the world's largest network of live nature cameras. The project was launched in 2012 and has become one of the most popular nature phenomena on the web over the years. Every summer, several cameras are placed in Katmai National Park in Alaska, broadcasting 24 hours a day live, without narration, editing, or a script, showing wildlife as it is.
The main focus of the broadcasts is Brooks Falls, where dozens of brown grizzly bears arrive every summer, exactly at the time when salmon schools make their way up the river to spawn. For the bears, this is the most important period of the year: in the few months before winter, they need to accumulate as much fat as possible for hibernation, so they spend long hours trying to catch as many fish as possible. An adult bear is capable of eating more than 30 salmon a day.
But the magic of "Bear Cam" is not just in the hunt itself. The broadcasts are transmitted in real-time, without any intervention, so viewers never know what will happen in the next moment. The cameras document the impressive leaps of the bears for the salmon, the battles for the best hunting spots, and also quieter moments where they simply wait patiently for the next opportunity. Sometimes eagles, seagulls, and even wolves appear in the frame, making every day of the broadcast different from the last.
Fans from all over the world
Over the years, Bear Cam has become much more than just a nature broadcast, and a community of fans from all over the world has developed around it, waiting every summer for the start of the season and following the regular bears almost like reality TV stars. Long-time viewers have learned to identify them by their ID numbers, their unique appearance, and even their hunting style, and they hold discussions online about every successful salmon catch.
The popularity of the broadcasts has not remained only on the screen. Every year, visitors from all over the world arrive at the park to see up close the same bears they got to know through the cameras. The National Park Service has set up walking trails and observation decks on site, which allow visitors to safely watch the bears while they hunt.
The broadcast season also changes throughout the summer. In July, the bears arrive at Brooks Falls, where the salmon migration is at its peak and the hunting is particularly intense. Later, in September and October, after the fish finish spawning and begin to die, the bears move to the river estuary area in search of dead or dying salmon — and the cameras continue to document this sight as well.
One of the highlights of the project comes towards the end of the season, during an event called "Fat Bear Week." As part of the event, the park publishes "before and after" photos of the bears after months of intensive eating, and the public is invited to vote on which of them managed to accumulate the most impressive fat mass ahead of hibernation. What started as a fun idea has become an internet tradition that attracts hundreds of thousands of participants every year.
About 2,200 brown grizzly bears live in Katmai National Park — a number greater than the number of humans living in the area. Beyond being one of the best places in the world to watch bears, the park is also known for its volcanic history: in 1912, the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century occurred there, which shaped the unique landscape of the region.
