That happened when I had the uplifting pleasure of seeing Shadow's 22-year-old great granddaughter Colleen (Shadow, Blackheart, Donna, Colleen). We don't see her a lot, but when we do we realize she is rightly named after our uplifting 43-year old daughter Colleen. And they might even be uplifting for Colleen bear, considering the nice look in her face and eyes. She was mainly here for food, though, and she definitely got all she wanted in our effort to maximize milk production for her litter due this January. No bear has done more to maintain Shadow's clan by producing females. Sixteen of her 25 cubs have been females, tying 26-year-old RC's 16 females out of 30 cubs. We believe RC's reproductive years ended with her single male cub (River) of 2023 with none since, but Colleen still seems to be in her reproductive peak on a roll that includes her most recent litter
of 4 females. We'll see what she does this coming January.
Lucy 8-9-25
Another visitor in the last couple days is Shadow's 9-year-old great-great-granddaughter Lucy (Shadow, Blackheart, Donna, Samantha, Lucy) who arrived with three female cubs.
Snowflake's female cub
On another note, course participant Craig Rhyan captured the nice picture of Snowflake's female cub resting in a white pine during their visit described in the update of August 7.
Thank you Craig. Thank you bears, and thank you all for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center