247 lb male visits the WRIThank you sharing your joy over Lily Fans making such a difference as we saw in the comments and likes and shares after last night’s update. What a celebration! It says again that we are all in this together. You did so much, and it counted! Lily Fans saw what was happening, you understood, and you made a difference for bears. I think you woke up some important allies. I think you educated some key people as to the true nature of black bears, which can help in the future.
With the feeding issue thankfully behind us, we’ll make faster progress on the Ecology Hall and are looking forward to the Black Bear Field Courses and the LilyPad Picnic.
We’re anxious to identify the bears that come to community feeding stations—especially here where we can weigh them. We’re anxious to do exactly what the judge said. Hold Black Bear Field Courses, feed bears, touch them, lead them onto the scale, take heart rates, check reproductive status, check for injuries, take ID shots of them and their cubs, measure hair length, and make an overall record of who comes and how often. We’ll query hikers as to how many miles and hours they spend walking bear trails, human trails, gravel roads, etc. used by bears that are thoroughly habituated and food-conditioned at a dozen households in the community. We’ll find out if there is any basis to DNR claims to the media that we are training bears to come up to people for food—a claim the DNR was unable to find even one witness to corroborate at the hearing—a hearing the DNR tried to make about public safety, but wasn’t. You know the story.
What will make this year especially exciting is cubs. We have never had so many mothers scheduled to have cubs.
Possibly not all will have them, though. Old Shadow, the matriarch of her clan, could fail (or not). She has produced cubs every other year since we met her in 1995. Can she have cubs now at 28? That would make her the oldest mother in all our studies. We remember the bear who came closest to doing that—old 641 who had them at 26. Her teeth were terrible by that age. The next couple years were scarce food years, and she had no cubs. Then, at 29, she had a good food year, but a hunter shot her that fall at 29 ¾, preventing us from completing that story. However, Shadow gets supplemental food at the community feeding stations, we’re betting she has cubs.
Including Shadow, 20 clan females are scheduled to be with cubs—Shadow (28), Donna (15), Braveheart (13), Shannon (10), Ursula 10), Bow (9), Lily (8), and Star (6). Six 4-year-olds are very likely to be with their first litters—Aster (June’s daughter), Faith (Lily’s daughter), Daisy (Bow’s daughter), Willow (Donna’s daughter), Wendy (Donna’s daughter), and Buffy (Shannon’s daughter). Six 3-year-olds have a better than 50/50 chance of being with their first litters—Fern (Jewel’s daughter), Nita (RC’s daughter), Shauney (RC’s daughter), Vanna (Dot’s daughter), Sophie (Juliet’s daughter), and Sybil (Juliet’s daughter).
As I was writing this, a 247-pound young male stopped by. He ran when he saw me but recognized “It’s me bear.” He stopped. He knew me. My actions that followed were what he expected at this location, confirming my identity and intent. He got on the scale and then posed for an ID picture in the setting sun. The world is back to normal. We’re off and running.
Thank you for all you have done, especially these past few weeks.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.