Juliet bedded under balsam - March 30, 2012First, our bears. Three inches of wet snow did not send Lily and Faith back to their den. As we thought, they’re out and gone—about a third of a mile away. So today, Jim Stroner, Charlie Meyer, and Ted Parvu did the herculean task of disassembling the Den Shed, packing away the solar panels, and hauling 8 heavy batteries and 3 heavy propane tanks (nearly full yet) out of the woods. Many thanks for that big job.
Juliet approaching - March 30, 2012
Jewel is still at her den, playing with Fern and Herbie, and doing the usual nursing and resting and now eating snow—that likely she welcomed.
At the Bear Center, Honey occupied her old window den. Lucky now owns the bunker den that he had to share with Honey much of the winter. And Ted is sleeping away in his chalet den as usual. All 3 were up for periods during the day.
Broken down willows - March 30, 2012We checked on 3-year-old Star whose signal has been coming from her den area. We picked up her radio-collar a hundred yards from the den. That means the last time we definitely know she was at her den is when Glenn saw her there on March 16. The radio signals that showed no activity since then were likely from the radio-collar lying on the ground.
Willow catkin feeding sign - March 30, 2012Juliet and cubs are still using the bed they moved to 6 days ago. Juliet has dug out a hollow ‘nest’ under a balsam. A quick look around the area revealed what she has been up to recently. Many willow bushes are broken down and stripped of their catkins. From the look of the branches, she drew them through her diastema to strip the catkins off.
Magnified willow catkins found in Juliet's scat - March 30, 2012Bears in the News
In the first story, a bear supposedly saved a hiker from a mountain lion (http://tinyurl.com/Bear-Saves-Man-From-Mt-Lion). The mountain lion attacked the man, and the mother bear sent the lion packing. Was the bear defending the man as the story implied? Or are there other explanations? Could it be that mother bears are especially averse to big cats that can catch cubs on the ground or in trees? Cubs can’t escape cats by climbing trees. We once saw a reaction by a mild mannered bear to a man who smelled of cats. The man’s wool coat was covered with cat fur. The man offered the bear food, and the bear approached. At about 5 feet, the bear turned and fled. Fear also brings on attacks, which might explain the mother bear attacking the mountain lion when she saw the lion distracted during its attack on the man. The article said the man reached back and hit the lion with an object, causing the lion to scream. A scream could sound close enough to a cub scream to make the mother wonder if the lion had one of her cubs, which could bring on an attack. Mother black bears respond to any sound that vaguely sounds like a cub scream—a red-tailed hawk flying by, a person mimicking a scream, the scream of a strange cub, or a crying human baby. Mothers with young cubs respond as if their cubs need help.
Juliet's cub - March 30, 2012
Juliet's cub - March 30, 2012A recent rerun of an old TV documentary showed a bear researcher testing the intelligence of wild bears that trusted him. One test was to see how the bear responded to a mirror. If the bear attacked the image, it would show that the bear thought the image was another bear. If the bear touched a sticker the man put on the bear’s forehead, it would show the bear realized it was looking at its own image. The bear did neither. Instead, the bear did what makes bear sense. It mostly ignored its image and ate the food placed in front of the mirror. Was the test a failure? No. To us, it showed the same thing we saw with our mirror tests here. The only way the reflection in the mirror differed from the reflection the bear sees every time it drinks from a quiet pond was that the mirror was vertical. Some bears totally ignore mirrors. Some pause and look briefly. And some look, then look behind the mirror, and go on.
Juliet's cub - March 30, 2012Dana Coleman will be retiring from teaching June 8 but will continue to work with the students and their parents to make the black bear the state mammal. They have put far too much work into this to let it drop easily. Perseverance is a major key to success. Dana has persevered in both her legislative efforts and her educational efforts about bears. We applaud both. Along with Dana, we feel that educating elementary school students is perhaps the biggest and most effective thing we can do for bears, and that’s an area where we want to focus. Many of you are helping with that. Volunteers are stepping forward as part of the expanded Volunteer Program. More about all of this will be in future updates.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center