A lost hiker in a remote Alaska national park was rescued last week after a wildlife enthusiast tuned into a live feed from a bear camera recording a distressed man on screen saying the words “help me.”
Video shared by Explore.org, a multimedia company that operates webcams for the National Park Service and other entities around the world, shows the haggard-looking hiker wading through thick fog on Mount Dumpling in Katmai National Park on Tuesday.
As he walks through the cameras set up to capture the world-famous brown bear, the unshaven, drenched hiker looks straight into the lens and mouths the words “help me” and “lost.”
A handful of viewers watching the feed at the time left comments in the Explore.org chat room alerting the company that there was someone in distress on the rain-swept trail.
The Park Service is then quickly notified of the emergency situation.
A hiker was rescued from a mountain in Alaska last week after saying “help me” into a wildlife camera. X / @exploreorg
The man indicated that he had gotten lost while climbing Dumpling Mountain in bad weather. X / @exploreorg
Katmai has multiple cameras operated by Explore.org to capture the park’s brown bears.Getty Images
“The park sent a search and rescue team to look for the hiker, who was trapped in windy and rainy conditions with poor visibility,” Park Service spokeswoman Cynthia Hernandez told The Washington Post. “Park rangers found the hiker several hours later, unharmed, and brought the hiker back to safety.”
A video released by Explore.org captures a team of rangers walking past “Bear Cam” on their way to rescue hikers.
“Bear Cam saves the lives of pedestrians (sic)!” Explore.org was later announced on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Today dedicated bear fans alerted us to a man in distress at Dumpling Mountain. Heroic rangers @KatmaiNPS swung into action and conducted a search to save the man.”
Explore.org shared last Wednesday that the hiker was saved thanks to a bystander who raised the alarm.X / @exploreorg
The hiker’s name has not been released, and it was not immediately known how he got lost, before finding the life-saving camera located about 2,200 feet above sea level.
The weather on Dumpling Mountain was dismal that day, with poor visibility, high winds, heavy rain and thick fog, said Mike Fitz, a former ranger, founder of Fat Bear Week and resident naturalist for Explore.org.
“The webcam viewers are still watching it, I’m surprised, actually, and they’re paying attention, which is very surprising,” Fitz told USA Today.
Fitz added that the first time the missing hiker appeared on camera, he gave the thumbs-down sign and then moved on. But then he came back and asked for help.
Fortunately for the hikers, despite the rain and fog obscuring the landscape, a few people were still watching the feed.
Park rangers were dispatched to Dumpling Mountain and quickly located and rescued the stranded hikers. X / @exploreorg
The area was shrouded in thick fog and drenched by heavy rain on the day of the rescue.X / @exploreorg
“There was someone depressed on camera 3:30pm – 3:43,” one viewer wrote in the comments section.
Fitz said he was not surprised that someone had gotten lost in Katmai National Park, which covers more than 4 million acres of land, is only accessible by plane or boat and has no cell phone reception.
“Even if you’re just two straight miles from the Brooks River and the lodge at the park’s visitor center happens to be in a campground, in that situation, it can feel like a different world,” Fritz told USA Today. “The weather is often worse at the top of the mountain… it’s hard to understand what you’re in.”
“Bear cams” in Katmai attract many spectators from all over the world in October during the annual Fat Bear Week competition. Getty Images
Live feeds from Katmai are especially popular during Fat Bear Week – a viral online event organized each October by park officials and nonprofit groups, where wildlife enthusiasts vote in a March Madness-style contest on the park’s 12 fattest brown bears photographed in Brooks river
The bear that gained the most weight by eating salmon before winter hibernation will be crowned the winner on Oct. 5.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
