The objective of this experiment is to investigate whether bears are found fishing more in the rapids or in still, calm water. When first observing the pictures to form a hypothesis, I did not readily see a clear trend to justify where the bears typically fished. However, after studying many pictures over several time periods, I concluded that the bears were more likely to fish in the rapids. This led to my hypothesis that in the McNeil River Falls, more grizzly bears are found fishing in the rapids opposed to the still water nearby.
I began by using a random number generator to choose the photo numbers of thirty pictures that I would select from the BearCam stills. After selecting the pictures I separated them by time frame in order to…show more content… However, the margins were much closer than I anticipated. From the pictures I used, there were a total of 39 bears fishing in the rapids, opposed to 30 that were fishing in still water. This equates to an average of 1.3 grizzly bears fishing in the rapids at any given time compared to an average of 1 in the still water (Figure 1). It logically makes sense that bears fish in the rapids because of the activity and patterns of fish. Many fish that bears consume such as salmon must literally jump up the rapids going against the current in order to spawn or reproduce (Savannah). This makes the rapids, particularly a small drop off within the rapids, the ideal placement for bears to fish. Some limitations of my study were the clarity of the pictures and the pictures being my only source of data as well, as the falls being the only location that was tested. In order to precisely know the reasoning behind this idea of bears fishing in the rapids more often, future studies in numerous locations where bears are native could investigate the placement of grizzly bears while they fish and consequently give more evidence towards this