The Mystery of Myotis Lucifugus in Alaska
LITTLE BROWN BATS and BROWN BEARS AT BROOKS FALLS
I’d always dreamt of visiting Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park and observing the concentration of brown bears that gather at the river to feed on the salmon. Never in a million years would I have guessed that the opportunity would arise because of a story assignment about a much smaller (and lesser known) brown furry mammal.
In late July, I traveled from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Brooks Falls Camp in Katmai National Park, Alaska, to do research for a feature article on Myotis lucifugus, or little brown bats, for Hakai Magazine.
Dr. Michael Saxton, Park Biologist, and Eric Johnston, Biology Technician, driving out to Fures Cabin.
Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park, Alaska.
Biologist, Jesika Reimer, is leading the first-ever gene flow study of little brown bats in Alaska. Over the past decade, Reimer has dedicated her career to better understanding how bats survive and thrive at northern latitudes. How does this hibernating, nocturnal mammal make a living when summers are so short, and the darkness they need to forage, a finite resource?
For a week, I had the pleasure of participating in bat survey at Brooks Falls, observing Reimer and her team in action, capturing, studying, and tagging bats with tiny silver ID bands, as she attempts to get one step closer to understanding their mysterious movements in Alaska.
“That they’re so small and that we are oblivious to them — that’s why I love them,” Reimer told me.
It was a sleepless week, as we observed the acrobatics of the little brown bats at night and the famous brown bears, fishing at the falls, by day. Bears often draw us in like a magnet, while other species slip through the cracks in our imaginations.
But by the end of my time at Brooks Falls, I’d fallen in love with feeling of bats swooping above my head, bouncing their language off my body, navigating the night air.
Biologist, Jesika Reimer, leads a bat capture survey outside a staff cabin where there’s a maternity roost in the attic. The team is collecting information on health and genetics of little brown bats on Katmai.
Jes Reimer, lead biologist, holds up a little brown bat. She’s conducting the first ever gene flow study of little brown bats in Alaska.
Jesika Reimer and Mona, biology technician, retrieving a bat from the mist net.
Bats by night, bears by day. A mother bear at Brooks Falls, waiting for the salmon.
A ‘cub of the year’ balanced on a rock, watching her mother fish.
A bear pounces on salmon in what park staff call “the jacuzzi”.
Bears strip the salmon of their skin, feast on the bellies, eggs, and brains, and leave the carcasses for less-dominant bears and other scavenger species.
Stay tuned for the feature-length story in Hakai Magazine.
Many kind thanks to Jes Reimer, Dr. Michael Saxton, Yukon-based photographer, Michael Code, and the friendly staff and volunteers at Katmai National Park for hosting us at Brooks Falls Camp and making this research possible.