We’re revisiting conversations about bears on Outdoor Explorer. Our region of Alaska happens to be the best place in the world for ordinary people to get out in the woods and see lots of gigantic bears. The coastal brown bear can grow to enormous size, but while they are gorging on the salmon that make them so large, they don’t pay attention to anything else. Visitors to certain key streams can get very, very close. We’ll talk about that experience, and the life of the bears.
HOST: Charles Wohlforth
GUESTS:
- Lora Jorgensen, permit winner, McNeil River State Game Sanctuary
- Sean Farley, wildlife biologist, Alaska Department of Fish and Game
- Grant Hilderbrand, regional wildlife biologist, National Park Service
- Roy Wood, Chief of Interpretation, Katmai National Park and Preserve; manager, Brooks Camp
LINKS:
- McNeil River lottery site
- Wildlife viewing, Alaska Department of Fish and Game
- Katmai National Park & Preserve
- Explore.org Katmai Bear Cam, Brooks Falls
- Reserve a campsite at Brooks Falls here
ORIGINAL BROADCAST: Thursday, Sept. 24, 2015, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. AKDT
REPEAT BROADCAST: Thursday, August 4, 2016, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. AKDT
SUBSCRIBE: Receive Outdoor Explorer automatically every week via
Go to OUTDOOREXPLORER.ORG
Eric Bork, or you can just call him “Bork” because everybody else does, is the FM Operations Manager for KSKA-FM. He oversees the day-to-day operations of the FM broadcast. He produces and edits episodes of Outdoor Explorer, the Alaska-focused outdoors program. He also maintains the web posts for that show. You may have heard him filling in for Morning Edition or hosting All Things Considered and can still find him operating the soundboard for any of the live broadcast programs.
After escaping the Detroit area when he was 18, Bork made it up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where he earned a degree in Communications/Radio Broadcasting from Northern Michigan University. He spent time managing the college radio station, working for the local NPR affiliate, and then in top 40 radio in Michigan before coming to Alaska to work his first few summers. After then moving to Chicago, it only took five years to convince him to move back to Alaska in 2010. When not involved in great radio programming he’s probably riding a bicycle, thinking about riding bicycles, dreaming about bikes, reading a book, or planning the next place he’ll travel to. Only two continents left to conquer!
