If the salmon are numerous and each bear can catch the number of salmon they want, they will catch somewhere between 10 and 20 a day, but large males have been seen catching and eating as many as 50. Each salmon is roughly worth 4,000 calories in entirety, and 20,000 calories ingested a day is common.
How much salmon do bears eat?
They then analyzed the mercury content found in the bears’ fur to gain an estimate of salmon consumption. Not surprisingly, the results indicate bears eat a lot of salmon. Adult male bears on Kodiak ate the most salmon on average, consuming an incredible 6,146 pounds (2,788 kg) per bear per year!
They sit for hours in the water, catching fish after fish after fish. During these moments, their hunger appears insatiable. Adult bears at Brooks Falls can catch and eat dozens of salmon per day when fishing conditions are optimal.
How much do bears eat in a year?
Subadult females ate 1,248 pounds (566 kg) while subadult males ate 1,305 pounds (592 kg) of salmon per bear per year. Bears at Brooks Falls don’t often eat 150 pounds of fish per day, like 747 demonstrated earlier this summer.
How many salmon did the Brooks River Bear eat?
On June 30, 2018, I watched one of Brooks River’s largest bears, 747, catch and eat eighteen salmon in a little over three hours. Earlier in the day, bearcam viewers watched him catch and consume many others. Conservatively, his catch that day can be reasonably be estimated at 30 salmon.
When are bears most likely to eat a whole fish?
When salmon are not abundant or hard to catch then bears will not be as selective and will most often eat the whole fish. When is the best time of day to watch the bears on the cams? Katmai’s brown bears are mostly diurnal so they are active throughout the day.
Do bears eat the whole fish?
This is an ephemeral behavior, however. When salmon are not abundant or hard to catch then bears will not be as selective and will most often eat the whole fish. When is the best time of day to watch the bears on the cams?