This huge male brown bear is just a few hundred yards from the line dividing Katmai park from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Unit 9 hunting area. This area includes Moraine and Funnel Creek, popular bear viewing areas for visitors from around the world. This year, the state opened the hunting season a week earlier- October 1st. In most of Unit 9, there is unlimited take of brown bears. In the first week of this October, we observed a slaughter of brown bears that just days before we’re