Avi Henriques
@legalizegoblins.bsky.social
They/he gay trans guy, lead editor at Paizo (Pathfinder and Starfinder). I post pictures of my cat Mina and talk about books and gay vampires. May contain bears.
Had to share this silly picture of me smiling at Mina while she goes (eyes emoji) at the sound of a bird.
Today's bear is the youngster 99! He is 8 years old and gets exceptionally pudgy in the fall, as you can see here. 99's mother is experienced mom 39, and he has two brothers who also frequent the falls. 99 will sometimes greet his brothers with a friendly sniff. He's a good boy.
I desperately need transphobic bigots to realize they are not the target audience for Paizo products.
Successfully completed editing on a big rulebook at Paizo today. And can I just say: I am so freaking proud of our editors. We had four new team members join us last spring/summer and they have really come into their own.
Today's bear is the charming 89 Backpack. He's the oldest of Holly's offspring, and he got his nickname by riding around on her back as a cub. Backpack is an easygoing adult male who doesn't engage much with the dominance hierarchy. He presents another option for male bears: fly under the radar.
Yeah, very glad it can be turned off, but it's super disappointing to see the DDG team pursuing AI when they've previously been the best way to find accurate information searching online.
Well, it was nice while it lasted. I've been using DuckDuckGo as an alternative to Google for years and saw today that they're integrating AI into their searches. It sucks out here.
Today's bear is 801, a lesser-known adult male. He loves to lounge and take naps, but his fishing skills are sharp. He navigates the falls well as a smaller male, staying out of trouble—most of the time. He got these wounds on his head during mating season, which is when most big injuries happen.
I spent two and a half hours painting this and am stupidly proud of it.
My account has experienced a recent surge in Mina post engagement so here’s more Mina for the fans. She says thanks for the likes.
Divot and her cub were VERY lucky. Hunting and snares are illegal in Katmai National Park, but she had wandered out of the bounds of the park, because obviously bears don't know where the boundary is. We need better protections for bears, because even the residents of our national parks aren't safe.
Today's bear is 854 Divot! Divot is a feisty and experienced mama and expert fisher. She is best known for an incident in 2014 where she fell prey to a snare around her neck, which would have killed her and orphaned her cub, but the park launched a rescue mission and successfully removed the snare!
Mina loves rubbing her face against this window while purring and getting pets.
It's happened twice in the 12 years we've had bear cams, believe it or not! But it's theoretically very rare!
Like his suspected father 856, 503 has long legs and an imposing frame, and he's nowhere near done growing! He was known as a playful, friendly bear when he was younger, but he is learning his place as an adult male. We only saw him for a few weeks last year; I hope we get more time w/him this year!
We did Holly yesterday, so today's bear is her adopted son, 503! He had a rough start, abandoned by his bio mom 402 (reasons unknown, but likely she was being pursued by an aggressive male). But 503 has grown into a successful adult with Holly's attentive care! 503 is a large, healthy 11yo bear.
Omg thank you all so much for loving my bear posts recently. If I can spread the love of the Brooks Falls bears, that is a delight to me. I encourage you all to watch the bear cams on explore.org or Youtube when they go live! They're really a joy.
(I will note—though 910 adopted her sister 909's subadult, the two had a relationship before the adoption, the previous summer when 910 and 909 and their cubs formed a coalition. 910 was already acclimated to 909's cub before she adopted her. Holly had no relationship with the cub she adopted.)
Today's bear is the spectacular 435 Holly. This Fat Bear Week champ is known not just for her beauty but for the time she adopted an abandoned yearling and raised him as her own alongside her own cub. Adoption is extremely rare in brown bears, but Holly had room in her heart for a cub in need.
HOW TO ID BEARS
1: Head and snout shape
2: Ear shape/positioning
3: Overall size
4: Hump size
5: Distinctive coloration (ex. Grazer is blonde, Holly is silver)
6: Scars (ex. Chunk has a slash across his snout)
7: Behavior (ex. 164 fishes directly under the falls)
8: Too much time watching them 😂
How do you normally identify which bears are on camera? I've always wondered that!
Gonna answer this in a QRT because I think it's a common question!
FIRST BEAR ON CAM OF THE SEASON!!! This is the Dumpling Mountain cam, and it survived the winter and came on automatically last week. We believe this bear, based on body/head shape, is none other than top bear 856! Normally we don't see bears on Dumpling so this is a treat. Welcome home, 856!!!
402 is mother to two of my favorite bears, 812 and 503. She has also lost MANY cubs over the years. I always admire her strength, her determination to keep her cubs safe even when the worst happens. She is also the favorite sow of top bear 856, who is likely the father of many of her cubs.
Today's bear is 402, seen here w/her yearling cub in 2023. 402 was first brought to Brooks Falls as a spring cub by her mother 209 Beauty in the late 90s, and she's been using the river ever since. She's had EIGHT litters, and she became a grandmother in 2022 when her daughter 811 had cubs.
They are totally fine! The falls are only about 5 feet high.
She's large and in charge, she pushes bears off the falls, she's Grazer. (Meme by #1 Grazer Stan from bear chat.)
My hopes for 2024's bear season:
-No cub deaths
-On-time and strong salmon run
-Return of the oldest bears (Otis, Holly)
-Subadults being friends! This year we will have over a dozen new subadults. Lots of opportunity for playtime.
Please send your best thoughts 🤞
In 2022, the cams came on on June 21st. In 2023, it was June 16th. This year it's probably gonna be no earlier than the 18th—they're doing a pre-season live chat on the 17th, which implies the cams won't be on till afterward. So I have about two more weeks till the cams come on.
In a few weeks, this will be my life. I am absolutely losing my shit with impatience. BEAR SEASON NOW
*glances at Twitter* Ah, I see people are busy celebrating the worst comic of all time! Seriously fuck these people. This is why I can't get behind cape comics as an industry. Even to this day, we celebrate works that sensationalize sexual assault and fridging to sell copies. FUCK. THAT.
Omg at my time of posting this has 446 likes. Mina is famous. As she should be, because she is the best.
Popeye is an older bear, ~25, but he hasn't lost his touch. Though he doesn't challenge the largest boars (747, 856, 32 Chunk), he is pretty much able to pirate successfully from any other bear he wants. Piracy is a valid survival strategy, and to me indicates intelligence. I hope we see him soon.
Today's bear is 634 Popeye. He is most distinctive for his enormous shoulder hump and his expert piracy (also known as kleptoparasitism). He will fish for his own salmon, but if another bear lower in the hierarchy catches a fish near him, he will steal it, usually through intimidation.
Still sorting old screenshots so here's one from 2022. Sometimes the camera freezes and when it does, it becomes much more hi-res for some reason. It allowed me to get this great action shot of Chunk eating salmon while Otis, 747, Walker, and 911 fish around him, surrounded by scavenging gulls.
