A former Katmai National Park superintendent has written Interior Secretary Jewell with concerns over planned developments at the Brooks River in the park/Rebecca Latson

With construction expected to start soon on a major development plan for Brooks River in Katmai National Park in Alaska, a former park superintendent fears the Park Service is more concerned with visitation to the area than the bears that rely on its salmon-rich fishery.

Ray Bane, who managed the park in the late 1980s, outlined his concerns in an open letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. In it he laid out what he believes is wrong with the decision to replace a floating bridge across the Brooks River that has had to be installed and removed every year with a 415-foot fixed bridge and boardwalk estimated to cost nearly $8 million. He also expressed disappointment that the Park Service had decided against moving "lodge facilities, the campground, NPS administrative structures and aircraft and boat docking operations" from the north side of the river to the south.

The Record of Decision signed in April 2013 to OK the project stated in part that, "Brown bears will benefit from the removal of the floating bridge, which is an obstruction to bears moving up and down Brooks River. Because the bridge and boardwalk are elevated 10 ft, bears will interact less with humans at ground-level which will allow them greater access to habitat, less stress, and easier movement."

But Mr. Bane, who shared his letter with the Traveler, told Secretary Jewell that when he was superintendent he oversaw completion of a Brooks River Area Development Concept Plan (DCP) that called "for the complete relocation of all developments from the north side of Brooks River to a location atop a low plateau south of the river. This is in keeping with findings and recommendations of research carried out by wildlife biologists, of the Katmai General Management Plan, and fundamental resource management standards of the NPS."

However, he added, political opposition to that plan prevented it from receiving the funds needed for implementation. 

"There was – and continues to be – resistance to setting limits on visitor numbers to prevent disrupting the natural dynamics of Brooks River and exceeding the management capabilities of the park staff," Mr. Bane wrote. "The Park Service found itself putting bureaucratic Band-Aids on a situation that is ultimately destined to fail, possibly catastrophically.

"... There is growing concern within conservation organizations and among other long-term supporters of Katmai that the National Park Service is effectively discarding the final DCP and incrementally accommodating increasing visitor use congestion and commercial operations within critical bear habitat. Based on research and discussions with individuals familiar with Brooks River developments, there is reason to believe these changes to the DCP reflect an informal decision to abandon efforts to relocate all Brooks Camp operations and facilities."

The former superintendent maintained in his letter that current management of the Brooks River bear-viewing area is, "in large part, based on a fallacy that, somehow, the bears that frequent the river are 'different' from other wild bears."

"I have heard visitors and even NPS employees refer to the bears of Brooks River as being 'good bears,' meaning that they are unusually tolerant of humans," wrote Mr. Bane. "What many fail to realize or knowingly ignore is that the behavior of the bears is linked to the abundance of salmon in Brooks River. The supply of salmon has been relatively plentiful and stable over the past few decades while visitation to Brooks River has grown exponentially. In effect, the NPS has been pushing the envelope in permitting the increasingly intense interaction between people and bears at Brooks River."

But in approving the plan, top Park Service regional officials maintained that, "(T)he elevated bridge, boardwalks, and viewing areas will greatly improve visitor safety and provide new bear viewing opportunities by vertically separating humans and bears, resulting in a localized, major, long-term, beneficial impact on visitor experience."

In his letter, Mr. Bane expressed worries that when salmon runs drop as part of a natural cycle, the bears that return to Brooks River will look for the closest alternative meal.

"From long personal experience with bears in wild settings, locked doors and shuttered windows will not stop a determined bear. They are amazingly intelligent, unimaginably strong, and single-mindedly determined creatures that will find ways of getting around man-made barriers," he wrote Secretary Jewell.

With a network of viewing platforms and walkways in the area, it likely would only be a matter of time before a visitor is attacked, the former superintendent wrote.

"It is in the best interest of the bears, visitors, and the NPS to remove all lodge facilities, the campground, NPS administrative structures and aircraft and boat docking operations away from heavily used critical bear habitat on the north side of Brooks River. Moving only NPS operations south of Brooks River does little to improve the situation unless accompanied by lodge facilities and access related activities – as called for in the Final Brooks River Area Development Concept Plan," he wrote. "Indeed, moving only part of Brooks Camp increases human traffic crossing the river and exacerbates an already strained setting."

At the end of the day, Mr. Bane concluded, "(T)he current management of Brooks River is substantially out of step with the recommendations of the Katmai General Management Plan, the original Brooks River Area Final Development Concept Plan, research findings and recommendations of eminent bear biologists, the management standards for bear viewing sites managed by other federal and state agencies and with the ideals set forth in the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916 and Redwood Act of 1978."