''McNeil Falls'' is a waterfall on the McNeil River near

Katmai National Park Katmai National Park and Preserve is an American national park and preserve in southwest Alaska, notable for the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and for its brown bears. The park and preserve encompass , which is between the sizes of Connecticut ...

, Alaska. The river is famous for its large concentrations of

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear species found across Eurasia and North America. In North America, the populations of brown bears are called grizzly bears, while the subspecies that inhabits the Kodiak Islands of Alaska is ...

s and

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus ''Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Oncorhy ...

. The salmon arrive mostly in July, having spent their lives in Kamishak Bay, and when they ascend the river to spawn it is an attraction to the largest concentration of brown bears anywhere on earth. Up to 144 brown bears have been identified at the river during a single summer with as many as 72 bears congregating in one place at a time. The river's entire 35 mile (55 km) length lies within the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary, created in 1967 by the

State of Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U. ...

to protect the numerous Alaska brown bears who frequented the area. It also lies entirely within the

Kenai Peninsula Borough Kenai Peninsula Borough is a borough of the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2020 census, the population was 58,799, up from 55,400 in 2010. The borough seat is Soldotna, the largest city is Kenai, and the most populated community is the ce ...

boundaries. The McNeil River State Game Sanctuary and Refuge is part of a piece of land that is protected from hunting; the rest of this is

More famous for its bear population than for the size of the river or the strength of its salmon runs, McNeil River has been featured on many television and film documentaries. So well-known has the area become as a bear-viewing area that in 1973 the State of Alaska began limiting the number of summer visitors to ten per day during peak visitor months of June, July, and August. The area has also been "wired" for webcam remote viewing for those unable to access the river in person. Various groups have been formed to support keeping the area pristine and free from bear-hunting activity. And while the bear population often wanders outside the protected zone their numbers have gradually continued to rise over the years. In 2007, a group of conservationists managed to keep the state game refuge north of the sanctuary closed to bear hunting. Prior to the hunting debate, bears were legally hunted in the state game refuge north of the sanctuary. As a consequence, bear numbers at the falls dropped and the number of different individual bears decreased. Now, with better hunting and viewing regulations, bear numbers at the falls have risen again. The ADFG and the Friends of McNeil River have fought to keep the area closed to hunting and offer yearly ID books to help viewers identify each bear. July is by far the best month to view bears; up to 100 have visited the falls in one day in that month.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mcneil River Waterfalls of Alaska