A Report From FOMR Research
Grant Winner Polly Hessing

This summer I continued my graduate research on the brown bear catch of chum salmon at McNeil River State Game Sanctuary (MRSGS). With the able assistance of Larry Aumiller and Derek Stonerov, the wildlife technicians at the Sanctuary, I collected information about the number of fish killed by bears, and the age, class and sex of the bear catching the fish during half hour sample periods. I structured my research around the schedules of MRSGS staff. We collected more of the samples during daily visits to the falls with visitors during observations from 5 July to 6 August, 1996. To add to the times of the day sampled, we worked nine "long days" from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and spent three nights at the Falls. Visitors to the Sanctuary were told about the research schedule and were invited to participate in the early and late sampling. However, fishing activity is generally very slow before noon, and there were few takers for the early periods.

Currently, I am in the process of analyzing data collected from 1996. These results are preliminary, but seem to show some interesting trends. We collected a total of 669 half-hour samples over a 33-day period. During this time, we observed 7,648 fish get caught. Approximately 85% of those fish were caught by adult males. Not surprisingly, adult males spent many more "bear hours" (one bear at the Falls for one hour equals one bear hour) than adult females or subadults. Adult males generally command the best fishing sites, and this is reflected by a catch per unit effort value which was nearly double that of females and subadults.

How many hours will a bear fish? Once a bear catches a fish, how long will it take for the bear to consume the fish? Will processing time of the fish change with the number of fish killed and eaten? I collected information about bear fishing behavior to try to answer these questions. I divided the Falls visually into fishing areas, and then observed and timed randomly chosen bears as they went about fishing. When possible, I recorded which sex of fish was caught, and the percentage of the fish which was consumed. I have not analyzed these data yet, but it appears that individual bears have very specific behaviors and fishing sites which reward the most successful bears with more caught fish than other sites.

I will be spending time this spring examining data based on daily bear sightings collected by MRSGS staff since 1980. I will categorize identified bears by sex and age, and will compare earlier years with the most recent years to see whether the number of males and females using the Falls has changed over time. Thanks to the foresight of Sanctuary manager Larry Aumiller, this information, while voluminous, is quite accessible. It will be interesting to see whether our impressions match the data collected.

I plan to spend a second, final field season at MRSGS in 1997. I currently plan to follow the same research design as I did last summer. Analysis of the data from last year may modify these plans to some extent.

Thanks to the generosity of Friends of McNeil River, I was able to purchase some services and equipment which my very limited budget did not otherwise allow. I purchased an in-river waterproof "TidBit" thermometer and field-tested it. The standard Fish and Game kymograph is bulky and data need to be manually transcribed. The drum for the kymograph was luckily bear-resistant, as the bears found this instrument and rolled it about on the river bottom. At summer's end, after two months of being submerged, the "TidBit" did not appear to have been touched by human or ursine hand/paw. FOMR funding also allowed me to photodocument the study area and my methods, and is currently instrumental in covering some of my copying costs. I am grateful for the help FOMR has given me.