Preparations for the bear hunt continue. Today we changed yearling Sharon’s collar to one adorned with the same durable hot pink plastic strips we bolted to Shirley’s collar yesterday. We also figured a new way to bolt the florescent yellow plastic strips to the adult bear collars and began attaching those. More work to do tomorrow. All GPSed bears are fine.
This picture of Jo and her lone female cub was taken yesterday. We’re glad to have Jo collared again and be collecting data on her. We were surprised to get a GPS reading from her collar late yesterday that showed her to be on an island! Who would have guessed?
A few days ago June and her cubs became separated. At this time of year cubs are pretty independent so separations are fairly common. We ran into June as she was searching for her cubs. She hurried around with her nose to the ground grunting and grunting for them. Several times she stood up to see or perhaps to better scent the air. We could see the cubs high in an aspen and were happy to see she was headed right for them, but she veered off before she got there. She eventually found the right tree and the cubs came down to follow her off. A brief video of her searching for them is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y5P9PhVB78.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center