Friends of McNeil RiverPOB 231091, Anchorage, AK 99523-1091KEEP ME ON YOUR MAILING LIST!

Name

Address

City

State Zip -

Phone

ema i l (extreme l y important ) : © Larry Aumiller

Membership ( ) $20 Cub ( ) $35 Family( ) $50 Donor ( )$100 Paw Patron( ) $250 Generous Griz ( ) OtherPhoto ID Donation ( ) ( ) $29 2010 ID book$ ( ) $5 mail ( )$20 air

Credit Card # Exp. Date

____________________________________________( ) Yes, I want to be a Volunteer!

( ) S a nc tu ary open ing : We will be taking names for next spring’s opening (2012). Your email address is required for rapid processing. See below for more information.

( ) Adm i n i strat i ve he l p ( ) Board Member Applicant

PLEASE L E T U S KN O W YOU S T ILL CARE!!

You can also visit our website at w ww . mc n eilb e a rs . o r g and use our PayPal option! Checks and money orders are certainly appreciated, but must be issued by a U.S. bank.If this isn’t possible, please use a credit card.

With today’s economy and to cut down on printing costs, we really need everyone’s email address.

Please email us at madams@rmconsult.com or use the comm e nt se c tion o n the web p age! Thank you very much!

Cover Photo by Tom Griffin, ADF&G

2011 Spring Volunteer ProjectWe are anticipating this year’s spring project to be primarily the “normal” tasks undertaken each spring in opening base camp. Final dates are June 1st or 2nd-June 6, 2011. Tides, weather, and staffing will contribute in the final selection. We have already selected this year’s volunteers based on a random selection within those that have previously applied this spring. Please remember:

You must be a member to be a volunteer helper for us at the Sanctuary and be willing to sign the waiver clauses required by DFG. It is recommended that you be in relatively good shape and work well with others! We considered two names per application this year. The number of volunteers is primarily determined by seating on the plane(s), which this year works out to be two loads of three volunteers. ADF&G has the final decision for dates of service and numbers of volunteers needed.

As a volunteer, you are responsible for your own transportation, safety, clothing, tenting, bedding, etc., just as though entering the sanctuary as a viewer. Friends of McNeil River or ADF&G will be helping with some of the food provisions. Be prepared with your hip waders and warm, layered clothing, along with a willingness to hike and repair the same trails the visitors will use later in the summer. Homer Floatplane fare will be approximately $650 for each volunteer – we have negotiated with the Beluga Air operators to ferry our group to and from Homer on behalf of the volunteers. Three volunteers per trip & there will likely be some juggling on the return flights.

Float plane travel is restricted by weather and frequently must occur on days with tides over 15 feet, so some flexibility in travel planning is necessary at both ends of the trip.

Two flight services: Beluga Air, 2886 Bay Vista Place, Homer @ (907) 235-8256(others fly there too) Northwind Aviation, 1170 Lake Shore Dr, Homer @ (907) 235-7482

A few words from your President (of FOMR, that is)

We here at FOMR feel we’ve had a pretty successful year. After considerable effort, we managed to publish our second edition of our Photo ID book, called “McNeil River Bears, 2010 Photo ID Fieldbook”. This was done in time for our volunteers to take a batch of books with them to camp for summer visitors to purchase and use while there.

Our spring volunteers did well in helping the MRSGS staff open up base camp with many projects getting accomplished. (see Beth Rosenberg’s article). Our volunteers this year were Mike & Eva Stassen (AK), Glen Woolen (AK), Beth Rosenberg (CA), Wayne Laessig (CA) & Jim Ferguson (CA). Of course our volunteers always have to sign waivers to work on state property and around the weapons that the staffers carry with them, should they ever be needed. One of the volunteers was a late entry, as we had a drop-out at the last minute and we wanted to get a quick replacement to keep the head count even.

One thing that came to light this year is that a volunteer worker may not have a felony record. Although well intended as everyone’s offers to volunteer can be, federal law prohibits anyone with a felony record from working around firearms, even though none of our volunteers have ever been allowed to use them. It is different as a summer visitor with a permit, because the permit holders do not have full access to the entire camp and structures. Likewise, even though we fly over there in small floatplanes, those operators have to comply with the same FAA regulations that the big commercial air carriers do, when it comes to carrying firearms, explosives, canned fuel, bear spray, previously used stoves, etc. That is the major reason that both stoves and cooking fuel is provided in camp for all visitors and workers. The other items stay behind normally as well. The staff has been protecting visitors and volunteers since 1954 with no bear/human incidents, and we’d like to keep it that way.

This was the start of Tom Griffin’s first summer as Sanctuary Manager & eleventh on staff. He had two new staffers to get trained, plus he was somewhat tied up in helping with a research project. Tom’s supervisor, Ed Weiss, also was there to help out in general and to work with our volunteers to open the basecamp. The team did many diverse projects while there. Trails were cleared and the crew boat bottom was repaired before being put out into the lagoon for the summer (it’s heavy & requires everyone’s help to get it from winter storage out to where it will float at high tide. Lots of firewood was gathered, cut & split. Ed & his band of helpers rebuilt the sauna. They replaced the floor and parts of the roof that were getting rotted out. Minor repairs around camp were accomplished, and major cleaning efforts were appreciated.

This fall & winter will be a time of recollections for the staffers and visitors alike after what should prove to be another great summer of viewing the bears of McNeil River. Depending somewhat on how this year’s sales of our 2010 McNeil River Bears Fieldbook goes, we will be contemplating whether or not to do an update this winter to the book, or wait another year. The staff is diligently continuing to photograph the more recognizable bears each summer, both for their files and in hopes to update the Fieldbook. So, I encourage you to inform all your friends about the book and its purchase from our website, so that we’ll have need of doing the update this winter. It’s a lot of work to pull together each revision, but the finished product speaks for itself. All we hear is praise for it, which has been greatly appreciated. A lot of love, sweat and tears went into compiling the books as they stand today. All because of, and to help identify, the bears of McNeil River. This will hopefully keep them safer through better identification.

The Pick.Click.Give program for the Alaskan members netted us $1,125 in 2010 donations from the PFD program. Thank you for considering us worthy of your donations. We’ve submitted our paperwork to be included in the 2012 PCG program for a fourth year in a row.

Friends of Friends: Over the past year, the active FOMR Board members met twice with other "Friends" of Alaska State Refuges organizations. The first meeting was held in December and focused on the exchange of program updates among the participants and Joe Meehan of the

Alaska Department of Fish and Game. It provided everyone with an opportunity to help strategize on organizing support for the refuge program in the budget process. In February, the group came together again to meet with the new leadership of Fish and Game. In addition to Lennie Gorsuch and Mike Adams of FOMR, others attending the meeting were: Commissioner Cora Campbell, Corey Rossi, Toni Cavanah, Ed Weiss and Joe Meehan of the Department of Fish and Game, and Kris Abshire, Alaskans for Palmer Hay Flats; Barbara Carlson, Friends of Anchorage Coastal Refuge (FAR); and Tom Rothe, former Fish and Game employee, Ducks Unlimited representative and supporter of Southcentral Refuges. The meeting was an excellent opportunity for the Commissioner to learn about the organizations that support the refuge program and for all of the Friends to meet the new Commissioner and learn about her priorities for the department. It was at this meeting that she announced her plan to pull the statewide refuge program together under the leadership of Joe Meehan (Southeast refuges will remain somewhat independent). The Commissioner is scheduled for legislative confirmation before the adjournment mid-April. It is hoped that the meeting with the Fish and Game leadership can become an annual event for the Friends organizations.

We are getting ready to send out another group of volunteers this spring. As each year we’ve received many comments that we’re not giving the volunteers enough notice to make their travel plans, this year the volunteers have already been selected from among those folks that had let our volunteer staff know they were interested in helping. We hope to be able to announce at the annual meeting, who has decided to firm up their plans from the selected few. We will be having six volunteers with many others wishing it were their turn. If you’re interested in volunteering for this effort for 2012, please let us know anytime by writing to us in the comment section of our website at www.mcneilbears.org.

Speaking of our website, which we know needs updating but have not had the volunteers to help with it, we do have our books for sale and have started McNeil Wear sales through Café Express. Both are accessible through links on our website. Please help us spread the word about McNeil River!

Volunteer Comments:

Beth wrote after her volunteer week: Great week at McNeil River, thanks again for all your help getting us organized. It was a really nice group and it seems like we got some of the needed work finished. Plus the bears were out in full force, and we got to see some of the old-timers. It was pretty amazing. Thanks again. (She has also contributed an article seen further back in this newsletter & her photo to the left).

Glen wrote after his volunteer trip: I think everyone would agree it was a good trip, we had a good time and feel like we finished most if not all that Ed and Tom had in mind for us. PLUS we saw a lot of bears as well as some territory that we (Wayne and I) had not seen during our visit in 2004. Transport to and from worked out fine, typical juggling act of small airplanes and lots of gear. Weather was good with some wind, some rain, some sunny skies and not enough of either to be a problem. The statement that McNeil is about one month behind the other side of the inlet proved very accurate. Everyone’s equipment seemed to work ok with the exception of footgear: two or three had leak problems but not to a show-stopping

degree. Food worked out fine. The food purchased at Costco for us helped, and some of us augmented that with food we purchased on our own. My suggestion would be shop from specific menus for each meal. Pretty much what you said as I recall. Tom supplied all the cooking gear we needed except no refer or oven. I took freeze dried but never even considered using it. So like I said, good time, good people, good trip.

Mike S. wrote: Quite an experience we shared – I’m grateful we could do it! Mike S. set up a shared site for the volunteers to exchange photos between each other and FOMR. It looked like a great trip.

Wayne wrote: Hope to cross paths with all of you again, Thanks!

Eva wrote: Speaking of the staff, Drew and Tony were there as new employees and are both great additions to the team. All of the crew are fantastic, we had a lot of fun working with them. It was a really exceptional experience and we are really glad we got to go.

Summer visitor comments:

Pam H.: This summer was the most amazing trip of my life. I've travelled the world and there is no comparison to the beauty and thrill of being close to brown bears. I will gladly pay the amount on the website for your book. Looking forward to being eligible again soon for another fantastic visit.

Eleanor: The book stays on our bar and everyone is just fascinated by the bears. We truly loved our trip in so many ways. I don't know if we'll make it back again, but we sure hope we can encourage others to support this wonderful, spectacular place and experience the bears in their habitat which has been unchanged for hundreds of years.

We here at FOMR appreciate hearing from all the visitors about how their trip went, what they saw, photos they’d like to contribute, etc. It helps everyone keep in touch. Thank you. Mike Adams, FOMR President & Treasurer.

Tom Griffin, ADF&G Manager at MNRSGS writes:

The 2010 season was an exceptional one at McNeil River State Game Sanctuary and a wonderful way to spend my first season as manager. Before the arrival of the visitors for the summer season, I accompanied two US Fish and Wildlife staff on a 3-day walk from the northern end of Amakdedori Beach to McNeil camp as part of a continued Sea Otter Survey. This took place in late May. Sea Otters, a listed species, have declined in the waters of Southwestern Alaska over the past several years and the study is an attempt to determine causes. This continues to be a joint effort with US Fish and Wildlife Service and our research walk was a successful one. The end of May also saw the arrival of six dedicated volunteers to McNeil for general maintenance and trail work before the arrival of the first permitted visitors. Many collective meals were enjoyed in the cook shack with volunteers and staff, and the bears were out and about on the flats and at Mikfik Creek. It was an excellent week of work and bear viewing.

One highlight of the 2010 season was the arrival of two new staff members to McNeil River, Tony Carnahan and Drew Hamilton. We are very fortunate to have these two knowledgeable and capable individuals on board as staff at the sanctuary. They each brought humor, enthusiasm and valued experience to MRSGS. Tony is finishing up his graduate work in moose diets and nutrition at the University of Alaska-Anchorage and had been working previously with ADF&G as a Wildlife Technician in Palmer. Drew joined us after spending several years as a private bear-viewing guide in coastal Lake Clark area (Chinitna Bay) and, again, we are happy to have them both at McNeil.

June saw the usual bear activity on the flats and with the arrival of the first Sockeye late in the day on June 10 th, we kicked off a great Mikfik season. Visitors watched bears graze on the sedge (Carex lyngbyei), then fish the riffles and upper Mikfik creek. The eagle viewing in June was also exceptional this 2010 season. We saw over 30 eagles at one time at Mikfik. From roughly June 11 th through the 18th, the first few waves of fish moved through the riffles of

Mikfik while the water table was still high. The fish were out in force and the water of the creek turned into a silver shimmer that is really remarkable to witness. It is overwhelming to the small number of bears fishing the creek at this mid-June portion of the season and provides a fascinating, intimate viewing experience when compared with the larger congregation of bears that fish McNeil River later on in July. We occasionally saw these bears at Mikfik attempting to pin more than one sockeye at a time and it is always a high-energy, entertaining viewing time. This is a short window, though, and later in June the fishing style at Mikfik changes out of necessity. During these slots, the bears spend extended time in the lower creek patiently watching then (perhaps in fishing frustration) the bears throw themselves into the shallow water, displacing the now less abundant fish in a stirred-up, muddy mess. The bears respond to any movement by the sockeye and pin the fish in the mud. This muddy, plunging style of fishing is unique to late-season Mikfik and is a real treat for viewers. Also in late June, we saw the return of the fox family to our wood pile just outside camp. The antics of the female and her three kits provided a good deal of entertainment for staff and visitors. Visitor Bud Marchner provided these two photos of the fox family.

© Bud Marchner © Bud Marchner

As the sockeye run slowed down at Mikfik in late June, it corresponded with the first few Iris blooming, as well as the first few chum that were seen running up McNeil River. This time period also saw the arrival of Ian Gill, a graduate student and previous MRSGS staff member, and Larry Aumiller, the legendary 30-year manager of MRSGS. Ian and Larry spent July of the 2010 season watching the chum salmon-brown bear interaction closely for Ian’s graduate research project. During July, we also had two other Western Washington University visitors working in association with Ian and his research. As for the bear viewing in July of 2010, we had an exceptional year. I personally experienced one of the highlights of my career on the evening of July 19 th when Larry, Ian, and I counted a record-breaking 74 bears at one time at McNeil falls. This is highest individual count in the history of the sanctuary and provided great excitement for staff and visitors, not to mention for me. We saw the usual assortment of behaviors and fishing styles in July at the falls, from the “snorkelers” to the “plungers” to the “statues,” who stand patiently facing upstream waiting for fish to swim by before they pounce. It was a great bear-viewing season overall and visitors arrived from all over Alaska, the country, and the globe to watch the show. Then, as the fish run slowed in late July, the large males started to head off and the dynamic of the falls shifted slightly. This decrescendo continued into mid-month. In early August began the post-spawning portion of the fishing season. We started to spend a good deal of our viewing day out at Ender’s Island at the mouth of McNeil River. One memorable aspect of the 2010 season was the perfect weather visitors and staff enjoyed during the last two viewing slots of August. We sat in the willows and watched as the last dozen bears fished for the post-spawners to close out the season.

©Tom Griffin As per usual, we had a great season of visitors to McNeil River in 2010 and I would like to take this opportunity to thank both the visitors, and the applicants, for their continued support of the program. As I mentioned, we closed the season with beautiful sunny, warm weather and clear skies. The only low-point of the 2010 season came during these final few days when I was notified of the disappearance of a small plane carrying several Katmai National Park staff. We scanned the clear skies and maintained consistent SAT phone contact with the authorities in an attempt to assist in the search effort. It was a bittersweet end to our summer. Overall, though, 2010 proved to be an exceptional season at McNeil River SGS and I’m looking forward to 2011.

Thank you -Tom Griffin, MRSGS Manager

A Volunteer at McNeil River by Beth Rosenberg

I had wanted to get out to McNeil River SGS since 1993 when I wrote a paper for an environmental writing class on the mythology of the grizzly bear. My professor (in the margins of a rough draft I still have) suggested that I find a specific population of bears and weave their story into the paper which he had felt was too “broad.” As a willing college student, on the other end of the country in New Jersey, I began researching griz populations in Montana, Wyoming and Alaska. Having just spent time in the Absaroka Mountains in WY and also having decided I was going to be a wildlife biologist in Montana, those two states were my focus. I remember being in the basement of an east coast library and fantasizing about being out in the places I was researching with the bears that I had grown to admire from afar. I also remember when I first came across McNeil River quite unintentionally. I was reading in The Great Bear and was struck by the passage by John McPhee about the tracks of the grizzly and the great, wild space implied by the presence of that animal. That started my Alaska research. It wasn’t long before I saw the August, 1954 National Geographic article on McNeil and then, it seemed, the sanctuary was

everywhere I looked. I remember reading about Larry Aumiller and his gifted management of the sanctuary, his philosophy of respect for the natural state of the bears and the habitat and his desire to establish a system that would allow for a limited number of people to co-exist with the bears for a few days at a time. That whole article was a revelation to me, and even though my life would go on to take a different turn, I always kept track of the McNeil bears and vowed that one day I would make it out to the sanctuary.

Fast forward to 2008. Several years (clearly) had passed and I finally applied for the lottery to McNeil. No luck. Same in 2009. I applied and no luck. Then, in March or so of 2010, I got an email from Friends of McNeil River saying that they were signing up volunteers to come out to the sanctuary and work to get camp and trails ready for the summer’s permitted visitors. I couldn’t respond to the email fast enough. The problem was, I lived in Southern California and had a Brooklyn cell phone. This seemed like it would not appear promising to Alaskans trying to get work done in the backcountry. I prepared a long explanation of my history working and wandering in the woods for whomever I might have to convince over at FOMR. This, however, proved unnecessary. I emailed Mike Adams that I was in, and he emailed me back to ask about travel plans. From there, everything fell into place and really I spent the few months between March and May in anticipation. My mother even got involved, knowing how long I had waited to make it out to McNeil. She read the list of “needed items” and asked if she could gift me a new pair of chest waders in celebration of finally getting out there. She, of course, had no idea what chest waders were or more importantly where to find a pair, but she did her research and ended up at the Bass Pro Shop in Maryland with a perfect pair of neoprene, booted chest waders. Needless to say, even as an outdoor girl in MD, this was a first for my mom.

At the end of May last year, I headed up to Alaska from California. The volunteer group of six had all been in touch over email making plans for meals and travel, so when I arrived in Anchorage I felt like I already had a friend in the other volunteers. Eva, the only other woman in the crew, came and picked me up for a drive north out of Anchorage to show me around. I ended up staying with her and her husband that night, then driving with them down to Homer. They put me up for the night in Homer at a friend’s cabin that was probably the coolest place I’ve ever stayed, despite being (or maybe because it was) unfinished and way out up on a hill overlooking the Cook Inlet, the Kenai mountain range across Katchemak Bay and the Alaska Range across the Cook Inlet. There was another house down the hill with a roving troop of four dogs. I called them BADs (Big Alaskan Dogs) and we threw sticks for hours that night. I wasn’t used to the lightness and stayed up late pretty much every night I was in AK last summer thinking it was a waste to sleep when there was so much to see, and so many sticks to throw.

When we finally landed on the dock at Beluga Air the next day, I felt like I had been in Alaska for a while when really it was only a couple days. Chest waders on and everything weighed out, we headed over with John B., past Augustine, to McNeil River. I remember circling the spit and seeing camp and the flats and the expanse of grasses and low alders. Later on, when Ed Weiss was bidding us all goodbye, he advised staff to check the outhouses for me as I would most likely be trying to hide out in there and stay. He was right. That first sight of McNeil is all anticipation and excitement, and it never went away.

We were six and so it took two planes to get us all out there. We did our introductions with the AF&G staff after arriving and then wheel-barrowed and carried our stuff to camp from the spit. There were biologists leaving on the plane we were arriving on and I remember wanting to know more about the sea otter survey they were researching. We set up camp and got the “bear talk,” which basically consisted of the things one already knows heading into bear country but that seemed slightly less viable when the 1200 lb. bear is wandering through camp. We learned that camp is a no-bear zone and that we were to come get an ADF&G staff member so that bears in camp could be “clapped out.” This seemed like an unlikely prospect at first, as did the trip out to the stream get water, but it is amazing what changes of mind happen there over the course of a very short time. We set up camp and got water and filled the cook shack with our food for the week and when it was all done went out for our first walk. It was late but since the sun is out, time is flexible. We saw two bears that first night and I will always remember it. Being out with just a small group of people in that huge place and feeling strangely comfortable sitting on the bluff by camp watching a young male eat grasses, not really caring much about us at all.

The rest of the week was pretty much just like that first night. We would work all day, on the trail or chopping wood or epoxying and sanding the boats, and stop to see bears as they wandered around us while we worked. At night, we would cook a big dinner all together and share stories, then head back out for an evening walk. One night we hiked to the mud flats to pour plaster of Paris into tracks in the mud. I carried the plaster track wrapped up in my lap on several plane trips back from AK and gave it to my father for his 70th birthday. It is sitting, along with a picture of “Jordan” (its originator) with mud and stray grass stuck to the pads, on their mantle in Maryland.

When I got back to Anchorage from Homer, I wrote a letter to the supervisor of the sanctuary letting him know that my week at McNeil River was one of the most profound outdoor experiences of my mostly outdoor life. I was grateful to have spent time in a place that felt as if it functioned the way the natural world is supposed to. We were visitors and the bears were bears. I guess I would end by saying to anyone reading this that volunteering at McNeil River SGS is time well spent. And I will continue to send in my yearly donation too, for the duration, holding out for the day that I win the lottery (the bear lottery, that is).

Researcher Ian Gill writes: Dear Friends of McNeil River,

Once again I had the extraordinary good fortune to spend July at McNeil Falls with one of my favorite bear biologists, Larry Aumiller. We spent just over a month there observing bear-salmon predation this past summer as part of my graduate research project. This was our second summer of data collection, and I have been holed-up in Bellingham, Washington analyzing the data for the past six months. Not only did we have a great time out there doing the science, I think we may have actually hit upon something interesting in the results (a rare thing for scientists, let alone a graduate student).

In addition to our population-level data collection (hourly counts of bears present and chum salmon eaten), we honed in on 26 readily identifiable individual

bears this summer. We developed a sampling scheme that allowed us to observe each of those bears every day they showed up at McNeil Falls, and we kept track of how efficiently they each caught salmon there.

Foraging efficiency is important among bears because they have such a limited amount of time in which to get fat enough to survive the next winter. Ecological theory holds that over time individual animals that catch and consume food quicker (and with less energy expended) than their competitors will be healthier and more successful reproductively. So, knowing which bears fish more efficiently and why will help us better understand their life histories — and bear-salmon ecology in general.

There has been a bit research into bear-salmon predation previously, including the four studies carried out by researchers affiliated with Utah State University at McNeil River in the 1970’s. A more recent researcher from USU, Danielle Chi, did a similar study at Anan Creek in Southeast Alaska (where, incidentally, Tom Griffin and I met and worked together way back in 1997). Also, researchers at the University of Washington have become interested in bear-salmon predation recently due to the growing awareness of the importance of salmon to riparian ecosystems. All these studies have suggested that large adult males will be the most efficient foragers at a given stream because their dominance allows them to use the best fishing spots.

What we found, however, is that dominant bears aren’t always the most efficient when it comes to catching chum salmon at McNeil Falls. Instead, we saw several less dominant bears with catch rates as high as the more dominant bears. Most notably, Yolanda (a smallish female with no cubs) was one of the most efficient foragers by our count, second only to the large adult male Luther. Yolanda was frequently pushed out of her preferred spot, but she kept returning and managed to make far better use of what time she could squeeze in between other bears.

To be fair, some large adult males (such as Luther, Rocky, and Ivan) did fish productively by dominating a preferred location. However, it was interesting to see that other adult males (such as Ears, Plunger, and Jordan) were just as efficient by using different strategies. Rather than displacing other bears to get to where they wanted to fish, both Plunger and Jordan used unique locations to out-fish their competitors. Plunger, of course, gets his name from his technique of diving in the deep center pool. While other bears do occasionally try this technique, none come anywhere close to his success rate (informal counts had him coming up with a fish on eight out of ten dives). Jordan, as you may remember, sits mid-channel and faces down-stream. When fish swim past they occasionally rest in the eddy created by his body, where he catches them and proceeds to pin them to his foreleg to eat them. Finally, Ears wanders widely, preferring no particular location but stealing about one quarter of the fish he ate. Rather than exploiting a particular spot, he seems to key in on other bears and exploit their fishing success. These three adult males are the best examples of bears that could try the strategy of being dominant, but choose instead to employ alternative strategies to catch fish at McNeil Falls.

What this all means is that bears use different strategies to catch fish based on their experiences at McNeil Falls. I think they develop a conceptual understanding of the situation and seek a technique and location that will make them as efficient as they need to be. While some bears find it easy to dominate their favorite spot (such as Luther with his enormous size), other bears seem to work around their competitors and develop new techniques that suit the spaces available to them.

As with many scientific studies, this project raises more questions than it answer. Questions like how do bears learn and develop these techniques? Are they based on physical advantages (such as better eyesight), or on cognitive traits (such as the ability to learn and adapt quickly to changing conditions)? However, we’ve made an important first step in determining that bears that use alternative foraging strategies can be just as efficient as dominant bears. Anyone who has watched bears knows that they are intelligent animals that exhibit complex and subtle behaviors. Through your support we’ve been able to express some of what we know from watching bears in scientific terms, which will hopefully open the door to continued research and conservation of these fascinating animals.

I am deeply indebted to the National Geographic Society, the Waitt Institute for Discovery, the National Park Service, Western Washington University, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and Friends of McNeil River for their support (both financial and moral) of this project. And a special thanks to anyone who visited over the past two summers and expressed interest in the project by asking questions or helping count bears. It’s been a fantastic experience.

Cheers, Ian Gill, Graduate Researcher (and former McNeil staffer) Tools Shed, prior to chimney installation

2009 & 2010 Cover photography by Shawn Eggleston

With the generous support of a Rasmuson Foundation Grant, FOMR was able to proceed with the publishing of the 2009 and 2010 Photo ID Fieldbooks. The Fieldbooks are a cooperative effort between the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and Friends of McNeil River. The first edition published in June 2009 was well received. The second edition was published in the spring of 2010 with thirty-eight identified bears, new maps, and a more comprehensive photo guide of the plants of McNeil River. Both editions are available for sale through our website ww w.m c ne il bears.org .

Our plan is that the project will help enable the enhancement of the development of the database that ADF&G has started. This might someday be one that includes census, age and gender mix of these bears. Additionally, information about specific animals and family bloodlines, unique physical characteristics, injuries, fishing styles, and timing of visits will also be tracked. In the future ADF&G may add genetic testing results to the database. Tom Griffin, Sanctuary Technician, has volunteered his time and photographic talent to the project. I believe the photographic talents of the new staffers that started in 2010 may also be enlisted for future editions, but time will tell on that. The photo below is a new one from Tom Griffin, 2010.

We look forward to your thoughts and comments on this exciting project! Thanks go to Tom, Shawn, Larry, Colleen, Mike, Joe, Ed, Doug and Lennie for all their collaborative efforts. We could not do it without your help. Special thanks too, to the staff and Board of the Rasmuson Foundation who put their faith and funding in FOMR and thereby are supporting the bears of McNeil River. This is a “Must Have” for your trip to McNeil River and is excellent as a gift for friends and family.

Don’t forget to visit our website for McNeil Wear clothing and gifts available from Café Press. Thank you.

Please see our website at: http: / /www . m c neilbears . org/ which will be

updated in the near future.

Please “bear” with us as we are all volunteers and try to keep you informed as information becomes available. Thank you.

2011 Friends of McNeil River NewsletterPOB 231091, Anchorage, AK 99523-1091