An astute Lily Fan caught my error from last night. I wrongly referred to Jewel's cubs as yearlings. I was three months early on that. 
Orphan cub eating crabapplesThey won't be yearlings until their first birthday coming up in January. Thank you.
I've been getting calls from people who are seeing orphaned cubs now after hunting season. They should still be nursing. Calls are from areas with little or no food because of the lack of oaks, beechnut trees, and hickory trees in their areas. The picture is of the cub I was called about today in north central Minnesota. At least this one found a tree full of crabapples. When people see little hungry cubs sitting scared, high in a tree, they want to help. It seems fair to give that help when it was a human that took their mom. Leaving orphaned cubs to slowly starve is not fair chase, is not a quick kill, and is not what hunting is supposed to be about. Orphaned cubs and wounding loss are the two biggest problems in bear-hunting. So where it seems appropriate, I'm suggesting people leave a bowl of Hope Formula and maybe some raw, unsalted peanuts at the base of the tree for the cub to eat when no one is around. Maybe also leave some raw, unsalted pecans, hazelnuts, and/or walnuts plus apples, romaine lettuce, suet, dates, and fresh or dried fruit.
Here is the Hope Formula that Nutritionist Lily Fans helped develop to approximate the nutrition of bear milk.
Bear Milk Replacer (Hope formula)
- 1 quart goat milk (which has taurine and good fatty acids; but if you cannot
find it, use whole cow milk. Hopefully, the taurine in the egg yolks will
be sufficient.) - 1 cup heavy whipping cream (good fatty acids, some protein)
- 4 egg yolks, raw (protein, good fatty acids, taurine, biotin)
- 2 teaspoons fish oil
- 2 teaspoons olive oil (or other vegetable oils)
- 4 tablespoons plain, full-fat, unsweetened yogurt
- 1 calcium carbonate tablet, finely crushed
- 1/2 vitamin C tablet, finely crushed
- 1/2 B50 complex tablet, finely crushed to powder
Mix and store in refrigerator. If warming is required, warm in a hot water bath--not in the microwave or on the stove (damages the milk proteins).
Red squirrel eating male conesI filled Quill's empty formula bowl this morning. He'd been here overnight. He's the only bear coming now, I believe. It stayed full all day. I meant to watch for him around 4:30 PM when he often comes. Then I noticed the time (5:30) and the bowl was empty. I put the last quart in and will see if it is empty in the morning. A Lily Fan who loves Quill is making and delivering the formula as fast as Quill drinks it.
Balsam Fir Cones
Photo by Joseph O'Brien, USDA Forest ServiceThe 10 hot dogs I put out for the pine martens and gray foxes are not that popular. Now, after several days, 8 are left. Both species get up in that feeder to eat date mash, so they couldn't have missed the hot dogs. I suspect that gray jays took the two missing ones. They and gulls (which are gone) do eat them.
Red squirrel eating male conesOut the window on this desk day, the fork horn yearling buck was eating grass and plantain. Plantain is a naturalized weed that people try to get rid of in their lawns, so the fork horn was nice to pull it up by the roots (photo below).
In the balsam fir tree out the window, a red squirrel was nipping off the tips of year-old branches to eat the little reddish male strobili (cones or flowers, as you please) that had shed their yellow pollen back in the spring. I included a picture borrowed from the Internet (above) of these strobili as they appear in spring.
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| Fork horn yearling eating plantain | |
There are six days remaining in October to get a membership and get a complimentary 2017 calendar (click to learn more). Many thanks to the people who did this already. I know many of you are doing this simply to help out, knowing it is unlikely you can get here in the next year. Thank you. You can get 10% off purchases, though.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center