Jewel up close! - March 6, 2012With Jewel’s cubs’ eyes opening, we need to visit the den to document this stage of life for these known-age cubs. We hope to do that soon. There were going to be 2 videos of Jewel and cubs from yesterday for tonight’s update, but a clip from today’s footage reduced the Video Editor to fits of laughter with tears streaming down her cheeks. So, we just had to include it as a third video.
March 5, 2012 - Jewel the Black Bear - Part 1 of 2 Highlights http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LerCydOlUGU.
March 5, 2012 - Jewel the Black Bear - Part 1 of 2 Highlights http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuwIO59RRL0.
March 6, 2012 - Jewel the Black Bear - Piggy-Back Ride
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwFHyIkh-gY.
Lily and Faith play - March 6, 2012We wonder, of course, who Faith’s father is, but we may never know. Possibly DNA from the hair samples we are collecting may reveal that some day. We had hoped to see who Lily hung out with when she was in estrus, but she made that difficult. She did what a lot of females in estrus do—go on a hunt that takes them miles outside their usual areas. Lily went over 5 miles west and southwest of her usual area into areas with few roads.
Jewel and cub - March 6, 2012On June 8, 2010, when she was back within reasonable distance of a road, we tried to see her and see who she was with. It turned out she was bedded with a male but we never saw him. We stumbled across the double bed, but the male had split. Lily had her nose to the ground tracking him in the rain and didn’t care about “It’s me, bear” or the handful of nuts we offered. Eventually, she gave us a few minutes, and we determined that she was in estrus, but she kept looking off in one direction and eventually headed off that way.
Piggy-back cubs! - March 6, 2012How they can hear meaningful sounds through the drops of rain is beyond us. Her heart rate while with us was a calm 72-75 per minute. Catching up to them would have been hopeless in the tangle of alders, and the male had already demonstrated that he didn’t want to hang out with us, so we went our own way.
Jewel and cub - March 6, 2012
The shy behavior of the male made us suspect that it was an unfamiliar male Lily had found outside our usual study area. On the other hand, we can’t be sure of that. For example, B B King, the calmest, most trusting old male we ever met could not be seen in the woods. (Habituation tends to be very location specific.) In the woods, no matter how quietly we approached or how much we said “It’s me, bear,” he was gone—silently—without a glimpse. We never saw him in the woods. Maybe that’s one reason he survived past 12 years of age, which is far longer than most males survive. The average age of males in the hunting kill is 2.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center