Talk:Katmai National Park and Preserve

A few recent history changes

Decided to add some more background on Katmai's history. I added several sources to the National Monument section, as well as some more background on McNeil River, just east of Katmai. In any case, I changed an incorrect statement of the size of the sanctuary, earlier listed as 83000 acres but in reality 85000 acres, as proven in Robert H Busch's The Grizzly Almanac.--Anderswarr 2:26, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Brown bear vs. grizzly bear - a few final thoughts

These are a few final thoughts that I forgot to add during the bear edit conflict of April-May 2014......

"Remember that common-language taxonomy is far messier than you may realize, and bears aren't the worst offenders" is irrelevant because of what you actually mean: Mountain lions can be cougars as well, and leopards can also be called panthers, but even though this is another example of the common-name practice it deals with all populations of the species, while the brown bear-grizzly thing only deals with the coastal populations of Alaska bears. Because the mountain lion-cougar thing can be used for all populations, it is not an offender at all. Bears are the worst offenders in terms of how local coastal and inland populations can be referred to separately.

"The Alaska brown bear population is hundreds of miles to the west on the other side of the Saint Elias and Wrangell ranges and the Cook Inlet in peninsular Alaska" is not correct either; they are called brown bears along the coast of Alaska in places such as Admiralty, Baranof, and Chicagof islands on the southeastern Alaska panhandle and in other places along southern coastal Alaska. If an Alaska bear was to cross the BC border, it will change to a grizzly bear; vice versa it will become a brown bear. There are some sources that say brown bears are only those found on Kodiak Island and on the Alaska Peninsula, but this makes it even more confusing and therefore most people stick to calling all coastal bears brown bears. To make confusion even worse still, some people only consider browns only to be those of the Kodiak Island separate subspecies; and there are also others that think Kodiaks are also the bears found on the Alaska Peninsula (which is totally incorrect, by the way).

"Cherry-picking sources to suit your agenda isn't acceptable" No, then you are being unfair. You said in one of your earlier emails that I could change non-sourced brown bear to grizzly as long as I cited sources. And as I have explained many times before, it is not incorrect to call coastal ones grizzlies, but "brown" is the common usage. The only places grizzly would be correct are in Europe and Russia, where "brown" is correct and grizzly isn't. You will never hear anyone talk of a "grizzly bear" in the Kamchatka Peninsula, for example. For you to change the rules from changing non sourced brown bear to grizzly to not being allowed to change it to grizzly at all is completely unfair and I will neither tolerate nor follow your new rule.

Also, you said in one of your notes that the works of Brown and Busch are general-readership books written at high-school level. No, they are not written at that level, and no, they do not know less about bears than you do just because they call the bears grizzlies. You have no right to say that about them; this makes them feel like all their years and hark work of bear biology was for nothing or was all wrong. And yes, they can be compared with post-graduation academic research because their work is, for a fact, post-graduation academic research itself. Brown and Busch are both veteran and experienced bear biologists (Brown is over sixty years old) and they know more about bears than most people, even more than you, NBSB, the NPS Katmai people and most people who use the stupid coastal brown bear - inland grizzly things. I know this for a fact because of what I have read here:

1. "Grizzly bears and brown bears are the same species (Ursus arctos), but grizzly bears are currently considered to be a separate subspecies (U. a. horribilis)"

2. "There have been no documented cases of grizzly bears weighing over 900 pounds (408 kg) in Yellowstone"

3. "Most adult males typically weigh 600-900 pounds (272-408 kg) in mid-summer"

4. "The average life span for a wild brown bears is about 20 years......The oldest wild brown bears known lived for about 35 years"

None of these are correct. The correct answers are: 1. Grizzlies and browns are the same subspecies (Ursus arctos horriblis), 2. A male grizzly fattened by garbage in Yellowstone weighed 1120 lbs (508 kg), 3. Male browns are bigger than this; they usually weigh in at 800-1200 lbs (363-544 kg) (Large male inland grizzlies can easily reach 600-900 pounds), 4. The average life span for coastal brown bears is 25 years, not 20 years, and the oldest bear lived to be 40, not 35. All of the answers I got are correct and are from the Great Bear Almanac, by Gary Brown.

This just proves that the NPS Katmai people know far less about brown bears than Gary Brown and Robert Busch. They're just arrogant park rangers who live in bear country trying to act cool with their "great knowledge of bears" and educating people about them using facts divorced from reality. Brown and Busch, on the other hand, have spent years working in the field studying bears and their behavior habits, and carefully taking out data. They have devoted much of their lives to studying and helping bears (which is more than I can say for the Park Service) and know more about bears than most people. Brown and Busch could win a bear quiz against the NPS Katmai people, any day. And here you say that just because they call them grizzly bears they don't know nearly as much, are in high school and can't even have their work be compared with the works of Park Service rangers who actually know less about bears??!! WTH??!!

For you to say words like that are an insult to the years of post-graduation work by Brown and Busch and a praise to the much less bear savvy and experienced park rangers, and I won't ever tolerate or even listen to again. You're saying Brown and Busch are high schoolers to suit your brown bear agenda. You may not do that. Ever. Have I made myself clear? --Anderswarr 6:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Who are you arguing with? What are you going on about Park Rangers for? The guy who wrote the Great Bear Almanac is apparently a "retired National Park Ranger" as stated here...so is he therefore not correct?--MONGO 03:00, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Please stop using this talkpage, which is here to discuss improvements to Katmai National Park and Preserve's Wikipedia article, for your personal views on bear taxonomy. Acroterion (talk) 03:07, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Mongo,

Gary Brown did used to be a park ranger, but he was a park ranger for Yellowstone, not Katmai, and it is the Katmai park rangers that are getting the bear info wrong. Gary Brown is not from that park people that are getting the info wrong, so he is correct, along with most of the other Yellowsone park rangers.--Anderswarr 6:46, December 11 2014 (UTC)

Fat bear week

Seeing as it starts at the ens of this month, and multiple articles have been written on it, I think this page should feature at least a small heading for the 'Fat Bear Week' event run every year by the park, which invites members of the public to vote on who they think is the fattest bear in the park.

Yes, it sounds stupid, but it's easily referenceable and would link in nicely with the rest of the information on the park's bears. I'm pretty sure it's used as part of the park's outreach and education on the wildlife within in, and seeing as the park itself already has a notable population of brown bears, I don't see why it wouldn't be notable enough to be included.

(I don't, unfortunately, have enough time to add it myself.)

(But. I will be voting for the fattest bears.)--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 01:03, 25 September 2020 (UTC)