 Woodchuck baby with sarsaparilla |
 Woodchuck mom and babies |
On this quiet bear day and an evening off, woodchucks sparked up the day with my first look at all four babies since the mother carried them to a different burrow system across the driveway. Now they are using both burrow systems, eating greens, and growing fast. The pictures show the difference in size.
Woodchuck babies in tall grass
For food, they mostly replaced grass with broad-leaved greens. To see how broccoli might compete with fresh wild greens, we put a big head of it on their travel path. It was a favorite. Two babies shared it. One of the pictures shows a baby pulling down a wild sarsaparilla plant. Sarsaparilla berries are such favorite of bears that they will be passing up blueberries for them a month and a half from now. It is nice to see the mother touching noses with the babies.
Thank you for all you do,
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center