Alaska’s brown bear reports concentrate around Katmai National Park and the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, where coastal bears gather every summer at salmon streams, and around Denali National Park, where interior grizzlies range across open tundra and taiga far from any fish run. Glacier Bay adds a third pattern: coastal Southeast rainforest, where bears work the shoreline and berry patches instead.
That geographic split matches a real ecological divide. Katmai and Kodiak bears time their whole year around salmon runs, and a bear fishing at Katmai’s Brooks Falls can pack on more fat in a few weeks than months of grazing would supply. Denali’s interior bears fall back on roots, seeds, and berries instead, and they carry noticeably less bulk into their winter dens as a result.
Records here run year-round but peak sharply from June through September, tracking both the salmon season and the months when hikers and researchers are out in bear country. A gap in reports during any other stretch reflects den season and lighter observation effort, not an absence of bears.
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