Juliet - June 16, 2012Juliet and cubs Sam, Sophie, and Sybil were eating tent caterpillars in the rain today. Sue videoed until the camera quit. We hope it starts working again when it dries out.
Meanwhile, June crossed the paved road in Bear Head State Park 3 times this morning according to her GPS locations. We worried that if she paused to forage beside the road and attracted attention, it could start a chain of administrative events. We hope not. Midday, she headed out across a roadless area to the nether regions outside her territory. We felt better.
Juliet reaching for tent caterpillars - June 16, 2012
June is a conundrum. She is totally calm with researchers and anyone they bring. Why then has she never entered the big state park campground adjacent to her territory? She is totally comfortable accessing food at feeding stations she has visited since she was a cub. Why does she spend so much time working hard foraging for hard-to-get wild foods and roaming the most inaccessible areas of the region? Why does she defy the stereotypes that are out there about bear behavior? We don’t know. We just watch and learn.
As we watch June’s shifting territory and exploration of areas farther and farther east and south of her old territory, we wonder if her explorations are totally due to pressures within her territory from Lily, Jewel, and Faith. Did the territory to the east and south of her old territory get opened up during hunting season this past fall? We didn’t have any bears radio-collared there, so there is no way we could know. We do know hunting pressure was high adjacent to the area she visited today.
A video of June from June 7 is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at3xxj9Pgp8. The uncollared bear at the end of the video is Big Harry following June’s scent trail.
Jewel foraged on grass beside Bear Head Lake State Park Road a mile outside the State Park at midday. When cars stopped to take pictures, she became uncomfortable and disappeared into the forest.
Wolf on Grant McMahan Blvd - June 16, 2012The opposite was true with a skinny, shedding male wolf we saw traveling the shoulder of a paved road today. Cars slowed to take pictures. He mostly ignored the cars and kept on trotting over a half mile before leaving the road. By the end, a line of cars had built up behind him. Individuals react differently to traffic and people. The wolf today was the most comfortable with traffic we have ever seen.
Cars slowed to watch wolf - June 16, 2012A new article provides evidence that bears can count higher than animals are usually given credit for. The article is at http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/06/scienceshot-these-bears-count.html.
Volunteers are signing up and helping. The Volunteer Coordinator said that 180 volunteers helped the last couple weeks. A new volunteer today helped in observing Jewel’s grazing beside the road and her reactions to traffic. He also started helping develop PowerPoint lectures for the Bear Center and the Speakers Bureau from Lynn’s old lectures and slides and probably videos. We have much to be thankful for. Today we are thankful to those who set up the volunteer program and to those who are volunteering.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center