Jewel - Jan 31, 2012Old Glenn (79) can walk! He can still outwalk and outwork a lot of people half his age. He was undaunted today when he saw it would be nearly a 2-mile walk to 7-year-old Cookie’s den through the snowy forest. Everything is farther in the forest than it looks on a map because it is a twisting, turning walk through brush, over logs, around trees, and through boulder fields left from the glaciers. Glenn grew up doing that. He also had to cross the ice of a slushy lake. He grew up doing that, too. Glenn knows his ice. He reported that Cookie is in a rock den with at least one newborn cub. Maybe another one was sleeping. He took pictures but had to hurry home because his burglar alarm had gone off and he had gotten a call from the police. So we can post a picture or two when he sends them. She was facing away from him and didn’t bother turning toward him because she knows him. A picture of a bear butt might not be that great, anyway.
Cookie's den - Jan 31, 2012Cookie has an interesting history. In 2008, she had a lone male cub (Lonestar) but abandoned him in early August and took up with a yearling male. We didn’t see any mating or signs of estrus. They just hung out and played together for over a month. She produced no cubs that January (2009).
Cookie abandoned Lonestar 10 miles outside her territory. We wondered if he would survive and if he could find his way back to his mother’s territory at that age. We wondered what would become of him. We gave him a small radio-collar and tracked him to a den the following spring. His den was back in his mother’s territory, showing us something about the mental mapping ability of a cub.
Cookie in den - Jan 31, 2012The next January (2010), Cookie had a litter of 2 and was a good, faithful mother. Now, in January 2012, Glenn heard the nursing sound of a single cub in her den on the shore of the same lake where Lonestar denned some 3 years ago. Glenn said the den is a great rock den that will last for centuries and has probably been used many times in centuries past.
A video of Jewel and cubs from yesterday is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAbaT-XnufM .
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center