This summer, after a 4-year hiatus, I once again joined Professor Tom Quinn at the Aleknagik site of the Alaska Salmon Program to co-teach a weeklong section on bears and salmon for FISH 497 (AERA, the Aquatic Ecological Research in Alaska summer field course offered by SAFS every other year), and to launch a new study of brown bear foraging using motion-activated cameras set to video mode.
The UW AERA class, at the mouth of Happy Creek, July 2026 (photo: Tom Newsome).
For the new project, we were joined by Professor Tom Newsome, a longtime PEL collaborator from the University of Sydney in Australia paying his first visit to Aleknagik. Our goal is to use video cameras to systematically record bear behaviors (foraging tactics, success rates catching salmon, diet patterns of activity, social interactions) in relation to variability in sockeye salmon abundance and stream morphology (depth, flow, width) on four streams (Happy, Hansen, Bear, Yako), with five cameras per stream. This will be the first-ever effort to understand brown bear foraging in relation to these variables in a system of small streams where these ursids are difficult to observe directly. We hope to continue monitoring bear behaviors on these streams over the next few years, and in the meantime want to express our deep gratitude to the 2026 AERA undergraduate student cohort, the 2026 Aleknagik technicians, Jackie Carter, and especially TA Emma Christman, a SAFS graduate student who went above and beyond to make things go during our stay, for assisting with our fieldwork. Please stay tuned for results!
The 2026 UW AERA class, here with AW and Tom Newsome at the mouth of Hansen Creek, with the aptly named Bear Mountain in the background (photo: Tom Quinn).
A sow and cub forage for sockeye salmon in Happy Creek.
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