It's not just Fat Bear Week in Alaska. Trail cameras are also capturing wolves, moose and more

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Millions of people worldwide tuned in for a remote Alaska national park’s “Fat Bear Week” celebration this month, as captivating livestream camera footage caught the chubby predators chomping on salmon and fattening up for the winter.

But in the vast state known for its abundant wildlife, the magical and sometimes violent world of wild animals can be found close to home.

Within half a mile of a well-populated neighborhood in Anchorage, the state’s biggest city, several trail cameras regularly capture animals ranging in size from wolverines to moose. And a Facebook group that features the animals caught on webcams has seen its number of followers grow nearly six-fold since September, when it posted footage of a wolf pack taking down a moose yearling.

But it’s not all doom-and-gloom videos on the page, and the actual death of the moose calf was not shown. The group, named Muldoon Area Trail Photos and Videos, also features light-hearted moments such as two brown bear cubs standing on their hind legs and enthusiastically rubbing their backs against either side of a tree to mark it.

Ten cameras capture lynx, wolves, foxes, coyotes, eagles, and black and brown bears — "just whatever is out here,” said Donna Gail Shaw, a co-administrator of the Facebook group.

In addition to the 290,000 or so human residents of Anchorage, nearly 350 black bears, 65 brown bears and 1,600 moose also call it home.

Joe Cantil, a retired tribal health worker, said the idea for the page started when looking down at the vast open lands of Alaska from an airplane on a hunting trip near Fairbanks.

“You’re out in the middle of nowhere, so you see animals acting however they act whenever we’re not around,” he said.

He later met wildlife officials in the Anchorage park conducting an inventory of predators. He saw them set up a trap and three webcams where a moose had been killed.

“When I saw that, I thought, ‘Yeah, I can do that,’” he said.

Cantilset up a low-tech camera, and caught his first animal on it, a wolverine, fueling a passion that led to the creation of the Facebook page in 2017.

Then, while hiking, he met Shaw, a retired science education professor and associate dean of the College of Education at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Shaw was intrigued by his game cameras and began bugging him to see the footage.

“Well, he finally got tired of me pestering him and one day he said, ‘You know, you can get your own camera,’ and so that started my hobby," said Shaw, a native of Texas.

She started by strapping a single $60 camera to a tree. Now she has nine cameras, seven of which are active in Far North Bicentennial Park, a 4,000-acre (1,619-hectare) park stretching for miles along the front range of the Chugach Mountains on the east side of Anchorage.

Her cameras are set up anywhere between a quarter-mile to a half-mile (402 meters to 804 meters) of the Chugach Foothills neighborhood and she frequently posts to the Facebook group page. Cantil also posts videos from his three cameras.

“I knew there was wildlife out here because I would occasionally run into a moose or a bear on the trail, but I didn’t know how much wildlife was out here until I put the cameras on it,” Shaw said.

She replaces batteries and storage cards about once a week, walking into the woods to do so armed with an air horn to announce her presence, two cans of bear spray and a .44 caliber handgun for protection.

Many of the page’s followers are Anchorage residents looking for information about which animals may currently be roaming around the popular trail system. Other users join to see what the cameras capture, including people from other states who “enjoy looking at the wildlife that we have here,” she said.

Shaw said that every few weeks, her cameras catch a wolf or two — and sometimes even a pack. This year she was surprised when a pack of five wolves came by, walking quietly in a single file.

Last month, while she collected memory cards, she saw moose fur on the ground across the creek from two of her cameras. After she spotted what looked like a roughed-up patch of dirt where a bear might bury its kill, she assumed it was another moose attacked by a black bear, similar to what happened earlier not too far away.

But when she checked the memory card, it instead showed the wolves taking down the moose yearling as the moose’s mother attempted to protect her offspring by trying to kick the wolves away with her long legs.

Now, the demand for the page is growing, but Shaw said she's done adding cameras.

“I think I'm at my camera max,” she said. “Nine is enough!”

This image made from video provided by Donna Gail Shaw shows a view from a trail camera of a moose and calf on July 14, 2020, in Anchorage, Alaska. (Donna Gail Shaw via AP)

This image made from video provided by Donna Gail Shaw shows a view from a trail camera of a brown bear and a black bear on Aug. 29, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska. (Donna Gail Shaw via AP)

This image made from video provided by Donna Gail Shaw shows a view from a trail camera of a brown bear and cubs on July 25, 2023, in Anchorage, Alaska. (Donna Gail Shaw via AP)

Joe Cantil, left, and Donna Gail Shaw, pose for a photo on Sept. 26, 2024, in Anchorage, Alaska. The two are the co-administrators of a Facebook group that features wildlife videos captured on their trail cameras very near a populated Anchorage neighborhood. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen

A trail camera is set up on Sept. 26, 2024, near a populated neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Donna Gail Shaw checks her trail camera on Sept. 26, 2024, near a populated neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

This image made from video provided by Donna Gail Shaw shows a view from a trail camera of a coyote on March 15, 2022, in Anchorage, Alaska. (Donna Gail Shaw via AP)

This image made from video provided by Donna Gail Shaw shows a view from a trail camera of wolves attacking moose on Sept. 12, 2024, in Anchorage, Alaska. (Donna Gail Shaw via AP)

This image made from video provided by Donna Gail Shaw shows a view from a trail camera of a brown bear and cub on July 18, 2024, in Anchorage, Alaska. (Donna Gail Shaw via AP)

Another in a series of unusually strong solar storms hitting Earth produced stunning skies full of pinks, purples, greens and blues farther south than normal, including into parts of Germany, the United Kingdom, New England and New York City.

“It was a pretty extensive display yet again,” said Shawn Dahl, a space weather forecaster at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center. He said the center has gotten reports of northern lights sightings as far south as New Mexico. “It's been a wonderful year.”

There were no immediate reports of disruptions to power and communications.

NOAA issued a severe geomagnetic storm alert on Wednesday after after an outburst from the sun was detected earlier in the week. Such a storm increases the chance of auroras — also known as northern lights — and can temporarily disrupt power and radio signals.

NOAA's Friday forecast shows continued higher-than-normal activity, but the chances for another overnight show are slim farther south of Canada and the northern Plains states.

The sun sends more than heat and light to Earth — it sends energy and charged particles known as the solar wind. But sometimes that solar wind becomes a storm. The sun's outer atmosphere occasionally “burps” out huge bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections. They produce solar storms, also known as geomagnetic storms, according to NOAA.

The Earth's magnetic field shields us from much of it, but particles can travel down the magnetic field lines along the north and south poles and into Earth’s atmosphere.

When the particles interact with the gases in our atmosphere, they can produce light — blue and purple from nitrogen, green and red from oxygen.

Dahl said this storm generated a particularly vibrant display when it hit because the orientation of the storm’s magnetism lined up well with the Earth’s. “We stayed well connected,” he said.

Solar activity increases and decreases in a cycle that last about 11 years, astronomers say. The sun appears to be near the peak of that cycle, known as a solar maximum.

In May, the sun shot out its biggest flare in almost two decades. That came days after severe solar storms pummeled Earth and triggered auroras in unaccustomed places across the Northern Hemisphere.

There will likely be more to come. Dahl said we remain “in the grip” of the solar maximum and it isn't likely to start to fade until early 2026.

“We’re in for more of the experiences we had last night," he said.

NOAA advises those who hope to see the northern lights to get away from city lights.

The best viewing time is usually within an hour or two before or after midnight, and the agency says the best occasions are around the spring and fall equinoxes due to the way the solar wind interacts with Earth’s magnetic field.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

An aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, shines over Portsmouth, N.H., Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)

The northern lights appear over Anchorage, Alaska, early the morning of Friday, Oct.. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

An aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, makes an appearance over pumpjacks as they draw out oil and gas from well heads near Cremona, Alberta, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP)

The Northern lights glow in the night sky above a road in Lietzen, eastern Germany. (Patrick Pleul/dpa via AP)

People watch as an aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, lights up the night sky from Montrose Point, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, in Chicago. (Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

An aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, is seen in the night sky along with the Big Dipper constellation on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

An aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, glows in the night sky above apartment buildings in the Queens borough of New York, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Daniel P. Derella)

An aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, lights up the night sky off Lake Michigan and the St. Joseph Lighthouse, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, in St. Joseph, Mich. (Don Campbell/The Herald-Palladium via AP)

The Northern Lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis, are seen in the sky near Knaresborough, England, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. (Andrew Hawkes via AP)