Juliet's cub with eyes open! - Feb 25, 2012It was time to record the progress in Juliet’s den.
Juliet’s cubs were born between January 17 and 22. At 5:15 PM on January 17 we listened for 2 minutes and didn’t hear a peep. The snow showed she had been out just hours earlier, which she wouldn’t have done if she had newborn cubs. We were satisfied.
We checked again at 2:24 PM on January 22—cubs. Their high squeaky voices added confirmation that they were not there on the 17th.
Figuring the birth date at January 18-22, we checked today at 4 PM when they were 34-38 days old (5 weeks give or take). According to literature on captive black bears, cubs open their eyes at 6 weeks, but they don’t suddenly open. They open a crack, then a little more each day. The eye in the picture is not fully open but almost. It looks like we were lucky in our timing of our visit for this week.
Juliet had been eating the fresh inch-deep snow at the den entrance. A couple square feet were gone.
Juliet knows us and was perfectly calm—not a hint of anxiety. She mostly tended to the cubs. They hardly squawked as they nursed almost constantly the 44 minutes we were there. When they paused at one point, one gave a little cry that we captured on video. It evidently meant the cub needed help going ‘potty’ because Juliet responded immediately. We loved the tranquil scene.
A video of yesterday’s highlights of Jewel and cubs is posted at http://www.youtube.com/user/bearstudy#p/u/0/v2SHCA1TgD8.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center