Chokecherry blossoms Holly is still reticent to leave her pen. Ten feet out was the limit today. She did relax more with Heidi and Sharon. Holly pressed against the fence so they could scratch her back, belly, and sides. New hair is coming in that will give her a whole new look soon. Even her ears are getting new hair.
Lucky high in aspenLucky climbed 40 feet up an aspen and broke branches. There were too many leaves to see all that he was doing, but bears in the wild climb aspens and break branches to eat the leaves. He was in the tree for 58 minutes between 3 and 4 PM during a thunderstorm with wind that swayed the tree.
Honey is popular, being in estrus, and is allowing behaviors she usually doesn’t. She allowed Ted to approach to within 15 feet before protesting. About 30 feet is her usual personal space.
Lily on scaleLily wasn’t transmitting her GPS locations, so Lorie spent hours trying to catch up with her while Lily walked through the forest. Lorie ended up anticipating where Lily would cross a road and made it there before Lily did and waited. Lily appeared and Lorie did her job. Ironically, we could have just waited. Lily made one of her rare appearances at the WRI. About 6:55 PM, she entered the yard, looking warily in all directions. She knew the food was on the scale and provided one of the few weights we have on her. As is usual for females coming out of dens after a year and a half of raising cubs, she was on the lighter side—187 pounds.
But we have seen mothers weigh much less. We remember bear 320 in the old days. She weighed 220 pounds going into her den pregnant and weighed 105 coming out a year and a half later with her yearlings. She knew a good oak stand 20 miles away to fatten up that fall and did just fine. She was the most reproductively successful female in the old study until wolves killed her and her cubs in February just after she turned 16.
Jewel hears our voicesJewel provided the biggest excitement today. We got a call that she was headed toward a house where she had fed from bird feeders last evening. The landowner said it could be a chance for us to sex the cubs. Sue, Lorie, and Lynn scrambled into the trusty van and took a shortcut to his house. He met us at the beginning of his driveway. He told us she had walked down the paved road during a lull in traffic. When traffic resumed, the cubs ran into the woods. Jewel continued to the man’s house as he had predicted. Lynn walked around the corner of the house, and Jewel bolted out of sight. We spotted her leaving and all three of us used our familiar voices. Jewel stopped, looked, and immediately came. She wasn’t wearing her radio-collar. 
JewelEmergency. Lynn and the homeowner stayed to follow Jewel while Sue and Lorie homed in on the collar signal. To hold her there, the man generously dumped a bag of sunflower seed chips for her. Sue and Lorie found the collar but the leather breakaway piece had given way. They rushed back to the field station for another leather piece and arrived back just as Lynn was heading into the woods after Jewel. In a stand of big red pines, there was a single white pine. That’s where Jewel’s cubs were—too high up and hidden to learn their sexes. Jewel was calm and let us put her radio-collar back on as she focused on the handful of hazelnuts. Mission accomplished. We marveled that everything had worked out so serendipitously!
Chokecherry blossoms are dropping their petals and are ready to set fruit. There was no frost during the blossoming period. Could mean a good year for cherries.
The print version of our Bear-Snake paper is now published and available at eth12236.pdf.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.