Ursula - June 24 Ursula is one of the sweetest, most trusting bears we have seen when she is at feeding stations where she expects to see people. Unlike most bears, we can walk up to her directly and quickly without her shying away wondering about our intent. She looks at the person without apprehension. She has gotten nothing but good treatment from people her whole life at the feeding stations. Last night she showed up at a feeding station. We got a call that she was back for the first time this year. We had to see her and went over. Same old super Ursula. She doesn’t flinch at being touched by anyone at a feeding station. She has never made any motion that would suggest a tendency to bite or slap. Some bears harmlessly say “Stop” by making a quick open-mouth motion in response to unwanted attention. She has never even done that. She is one of the most trusting and trustworthy bears we have met. We hope she stays around so participants in the Black Bear Field Courses can experience her.
Ironically, we can't reliably approach her in the woods. She is so cautious away from the feeding stations that we often cannot glimpse her when we try to home in on her telemetry signals.
We remember finding her in a den. Lynn crawled partway in and offered her food to come out and let us work on her collar. She came out and seemed calm enough for a couple minutes as we completed the work. Then, she walked a few steps away and bounded out of sight, abandoning her den. As a result, we have been super cautious about doing anything with her at a den and have never considered her a candidate for a Den Cam.
To our knowledge, Ursula has never checked bird feeders or otherwise gone to houses other than the feeding stations. We have never heard of her doing anything unwanted.
Some things are hard to figure, just like June and Aster having territories that nearly surround the state park campground but never going into the campground despite being so comfortable with us that we can (or could with June) easily change their GPS units in the woods.
We say again, some things that make bear sense do not make human sense. Trying to understand and build a sample size that shows patterns are part of what has kept us studying bears all these years. We’re just glad that Ursula is like she is. Her brother Burt shared many of her qualities even though both were offspring of Shadow, perhaps the most nervous bear we know.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center