The fat bears continue to surprise us.
Brown bears live largely solitary lives. Mothers and cubs, wary of potentially threatening outsiders, also live as independent families. Yet 2022 bucked this tradition. For the first time, fat bear viewers, naturalists, and former rangers watched two family groups in Katmai National Park and Preserve — in this case two mothers each with her own cub — hang out, nap, fish, and travel together. Like a big family.
"This was really fascinating to watch this year," Mike Fitz, a former Katmai park ranger and currently a resident naturalist for the wilderness livestreamers at explore.org(opens in a new tab), told Mashable. "Mother and cubs often keep to themselves. I've never seen two families associate with each other like these have."
The two mothers are bears 909 and 910 — themselves offspring of the legendary Katmai bear 409, a former Fat Bear Week champion. (If you're just getting acquainted with Fat Bear Week, it's Katmai's celebration of the success of these bears and the finale is on Oct. 11(opens in a new tab)) 909's cub is an impressively fattened up yearling (meaning the young bear is wrapping up its second fish-eating season) and 910's offspring is a spring cub (meaning it was born this year). From the human perspective, they're aunts and cousins.
As the images above and below show, this atypical family group was seen in various parts of Katmai's Brooks River area — an extremely popular fishing spot for these Katmai bears. At about the halfway point in this relatively short 1.5-mile river (it connects two lakes) is a waterfall, the Brooks Falls, which acts like a formidable wall or blockade for traveling salmon. The bears feast as the fish amass under below the falls and attempt to leap over the obstruction.
At first, bear viewers often spotted the four-member family near the waterfall. The experienced mothers caught most of the salmon, while the cubs mostly watched from the riverbank. It's dangerous out there, particularly the threats from other bears. Remarkably, 909's cub still snatched a few leaping fish from atop the falls, a "feat that yearling bears rarely accomplish," notes explore.org(opens in a new tab).
"It's pretty incredible."
But the mingling between the families didn't end at this hot fishing hole. They started traveling together.
"They hung out together. Relaxed together. Played together. It's pretty incredible," Naomi Boak, the former media ranger at Katmai National Park and Preserve, told Mashable.
"To me it was the story of the year," added Boak. She's cohosting the Otis Fund on Oct. 15, which raises money for The Katmai Conservancy(opens in a new tab), an organization that supports the park.
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The photo of the bears bedded down in the grass is telling. That's far down the river from the waterfall fishing spot. These bears can bed down to rest in lots of relatively safe places, but they actively chose each others company.
"I don't think it's a stretch to say that they're friends with one another," said Fitz. "This is an example of how bears can be quite social animals when the circumstances are correct."
We can't know all the circumstances that led to this rare family union. That's innate bear understanding. But we know these sisters likely felt familiar enough with each other to let their cubs tussle and play together. And, perhaps, in a harsh bear world where cubs are immensely vulnerable, the families felt safer with numbers.
Winter now looms large for all these wild animals. They're eating the last of the available fish in preparation to outlast the long winter famine, wherein they must subsist completely on their fat stores. Then they must seek out their respective dens. Even so, it's now Oct. 7 and the two families haven't left one another.
"They're still hanging out together," noted Fitz.
