Jo - October 25, 2011We walked with Jo and Victoria again today to document their pre-denning behavior. Jo is becoming a great research bear. Victoria is still a bit skeptical of us, but Jo is relaxed and ignores us.
Yesterday, play was foremost. Jo and Victoria played with abandon like Lily and Hope used to. Victoria was most often the initiator. It was great to see. The frequent play between Jo and Victoria was a reminder of how little play there is between Lily and Faith. Lily grooms Faith, but we see very little play. Hope was the playmate—for both Lily and Faith.
beaver pond that Jo and Victoria swam inToday, there was less play as Jo investigated possible den sites with none catching her fancy. They crawled into some likely root mounds of fallen trees. They dug a little here and there. Jo back-rubbed a line of abandoned utility poles and several trees, straddled saplings, and stomp-walked repeatedly. In the last couple days, they have zig-zagged three quarters of a mile northeast, moving over twice that far in their zig-zags. After meandering around investigating possible dens, Jo and Victoria cooled off with a swim in a beaver pond. They came out dripping wet and ran off towards the beaver dam. When they hustled across a beaver dam, we gave up the walk and radio-tracked from roads. They moved fast and direct 0.4 miles northeast and then lined out over 2 miles east—crossing Highway 169. What was the hurry? Where are they headed? GPS locations tonight or tomorrow will tell. This is what drives us on.
Victoria - October 25, 2011Today, Glenn and Nancy called to say they looked everywhere for Cookie and Colleen and couldn’t get a telemetry signal. We got up in the air and found Cookie exactly 2 miles northwest of the den she was in a few weeks ago. She is so deep in the woods and across so much water we’ll have to wait until freeze-up to check her exact location and record her den type. Cookie should have cubs in January and was a candidate for a Den Cam. Her new location makes that harder.
Colleen has us worried. Glenn saw her in a den on September 12, which was a little surprising since she has cubs with her. September 12 seemed early for her to be denning with cubs, but her signal was still there October 12 with only 4 days of hunting season to go. When they checked the day after hunting season (on October 17), there was no signal. They listened for telemetry signals everywhere they could think of. Nothing.
beaver-felled treeToday, they tried again. No signal. We assumed the problem was that she moved to a deep rock den that muffled the signal. It would be unlikely for her to move more than a couple miles. We saturated a 2-mile radius with passes with the airplane. Nothing. A long trip this time of year is unlikely. But then again, we haven’t seen everything, which is why we are doing research. We remember Whiteheart making a 24-mile trip in September 1999 and denning 24 miles away from her usual area. Very unusual, even for a lone bear. We can’t imagine Colleen doing that in late October with cubs. But then, it is hard to imagine a hunter shooting a radio-collared mother with gawdy ribbons and 2 cubs. Glenn, Nancy, and we will search further in a week.
A video of Lily and Faith at their den on Oct 21 is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyl0LL5H68I .
The waterfalls are working at the Bear Center!
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center