Determining the effectiveness of park management strategies at a coastal brown bear viewing site in Katmai National Park, Alaska

Increasing visitor use of Katmai National Park's coastal sites has prompted a need to evaluate current management activities and the impacts of visitation to bears. I used time-lapse photography, patrol logs and field observations from Geographic Harbor. Bear numbers counted from photographs were corrected for variation over season, years, time and tide using residual analysis. Increasing visitation resulted in a decrease in mean residuals ( p = .045); however, there was an increase when rangers were present (p = .043). Bears used four peak locations when visitors were absent; but only one as visitation increased. Changes in bear use of the visitor area were significant in relation to visitor presence ( p = .02) and ranger presence (p = < .001). Visitor spatial use was concentrated when rangers were present. Overall, 82% of visitor groups followed the park's bear viewing guidelines. I conclude that viewing guidelines and ranger patrols are effective management strategies.