A Lily Fan made a cute video of Ted talking at https://www.facebook.com/NorthAmericanBearCenter/videos/777659245737101/. I think he is talking about donating for food https://www.bear.org/website/how-to-help/bear-food/donate-now.html.
Tasha marking
Winners were declared for the piñatas, but a city wide electrical outage forced a delay in actually presenting them to the bears. Teapot Piñata – Holly, Soccerball Piñata – Lucky, Strawberry Piñata – Ted, Flip Flop Piñata – Tasha
Woodchuck babyTasha was rubbing on a scraggly sapling in her pen today—either spreading scent or hastening her molt.
The story behind the story of the woodchuck/turtle encounter. I was at my desk on the second floor of the Wildlife Research Institute when Mike said the mother woodchuck was approaching a painted turtle to maybe turn it over as we suspected they do. I grabbed my camera and aimed through the window to record a possible encounter that had not been reported before, as far as I knew. To our surprise, she attacked the turtle as if it were a threat but did no harm that we could see. The turtle tucked its head and legs tight into the shell. I clicked from 75 feet away with the long lens. As soon as the mother got the turtle on its back, she left it and returned to the burrow. The part of the story I left out the other evening was that she stood up at the edge of the burrow as if to scan for any other danger. That gave a baby a chance to stand up and nurse as mother looked around. Then the mother went into the burrow and a couple babies watched from the burrow entrance as the turtle righted itself and went on as if nothing had happened—all recorded from the upper window as the wildlife went about their lives and showed us behaviors we wouldn’t have guessed.
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| Painted Turtle | ||
Today is the first day of filming for a documentary on how mothers raise young. The above encounter happened a couple days too early to be captured by professional video cameras, and the film team from England is here to film mothers with cubs. The film team has been away for many hours watching a likely spot for mothers with cubs but the report is that in the high wind today (which is what caused the electrical outage in Ely) no bears showed. Black bears tend to be cautious on windy days when it sounds like danger rustling in all directions, making it harder to detect true danger. I was tied up with Judy McClure’s fundraiser this afternoon. The wind and electrical outage forced the Bear Center to close, making it possible for nearly the whole staff of the Bear Center to go to Judy McClure’s well attended fundraiser. She is loved by many. I got back to the WRI about 7 PM and saw two painted turtles in the gravel parking area well away from the woodchuck burrow. About an hour later, I went out to the van to get my camera and saw both turtles digging nest holes. I was able to quietly get into the opposite side of the van, roll down a window, and snap their 1-hour digging progress for posterity, adding a final shot from the railing of the front deck on the way in. One of the shots was straight down from the window, giving a look at how deep the turtle had dug already.
A good day.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center