Fun Family Resources

Just one resource today, but it’s the one you need.

Explore.org runs livecams all over the world, but the one you’re here for is BROWN BEARS AT BROOKS FALLS, YOU GUYS!

Here’s the deal: Brooks Falls is in Katmai National Park in Alaska, and every year the salmon have to jump those falls on their way upstream to spawn. And every year, the brown bears take advantage of that to gorge on salmon to fatten up for the winter.

And we humans take advantage of that to livestream these adorable carnivores as they sit atop the falls and try to catch the leaping salmon, or sit below the falls and snorkel for fish, or… well, you’ll see. It is endlessly fascinating. (We set the iPad on the dinner table and cheer them on while dining.)

Then, in September, the National Park Service sponsors FAT BEAR WEEK and you get to vote on the bear you think got the fattest. There’s a bracket and everything:

Oddly, the bracket from last year doesn’t seem to be on the intertubes

(You will, of course, be voting for Otis like all right-minded people.)

Because your Congress is A Idiot, the National Park Service does not have the technology that the NFL and ESPN have; no onscreen graphics pop up to identify which bear is which, so you will want to download the NPS’s 90-page guide to the bears. There is also live chat, and usually there’s somebody on there who can identify the favorites.

If you have a friend who owns a sports bar, I encourage you to forward them the link to an idea I posted about on my personal blog.

Anyway, you can thank me later. Because look at this squishy fuzzy-butt! Just look at him!

The aptly numbered 747

HE’S SO FLUFFY!