Big Harry - June 21, 2012We saw Big Harry alone today as double confirmation that June and Harry are not together. He stopped by the Research Cabin for a quick weigh-in at 383.5 pounds. When he was here, June’s GPS location showed her to be nearly 5 miles away.
June has moved 13.3 miles since her long rest of yesterday, covering much of her territory and then stopping at a feeding station for a snack. We wish she would visit the Research Cabin more often and get weighed so we could track her gain-loss cycle. However, we count ourselves lucky if she comes even once a year. She made one of her rare visits on June 10 and weighed 221.5 pounds—which may be the only weight we get on her this year.
Fourteen miles to the southwest from here, 2-year-old Sharon (Juliet’s daughter) is 7 miles outside her usual area. She has returned to the same remote area several times this year, this time going farther than we’d found her before. It’s time to change her GPS batteries. We hope she moves to a more accessible area soon. Is she exploring for a change in territory? As an alternative explanation, we are now in the beginning of the period when, in our past studies, 40 percent of females went on feeding trips outside their usual areas. The record distance for a female in that study was 67 miles in a year of scarce natural food. Facts and figures from that study are on pages 31-32 of Wildlife Monograph No. 97 (1987).
A Lily Fan sent us a link to an article in Financial Times about five bears that made the news. Lily—and with her, Hope—made the list, thanks to Lily Fans. The List: Five bears that made the news.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center