Jewel and cub - March 1, 2012No question. Jewel definitely has a female cub, and the other one is male. The telling bit of den cam footage occurred just as we began to think about the update. It's posted online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udixs-J3ykA. Oh, and the ‘word on the street’ is that the female is the screamer. Time will tell if there's truth the rumor.
Female cub - March 1, 2012So that gets us thinking about names. Sue likes the idea of continuing the plant names that are bear foods. She’s partial to Fern for the female—short for Interrupted Fern which bears eat at two stages in its development. Jewel is short for Jewelweed, a favorite green. Names of precious stones are attractive and would start a new line of names, but we might want to save that for a future litter. In this line we have Shadow, which doesn’t fit, June (short for Juneberry, a favorite berry), Lily (short for Calla Lily, another favorite green), and Jewelweed. Faith doesn’t fit but does fit the line of thought started with Hope and all your input. We’ll try to think of more bear food names.
Male cub - Feb 25, 2012A video of yesterday’s highlights of Jewel and cubs is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7QT934k4uI.
Thank you to all who submitted volunteer profiles to help with bear education and research in the many ways needed by the NABC and WRI. The volunteer profiles let us know your talents and availability. Volunteers have made the Bear Center what it is, and volunteers will make it what it can become. See more at http://www.bear.org/website/volunteer.html.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center