Fern gets a new perspective - July 10, 2012Bears and people made the day wonderful. Course participants include educators, a member of a board helping bears and other wildlife, top technical professionals, and a specialist in wound-care research. She advised us about the care of Oliana in concert with a veterinarian.
We started the day with Oliana. A homeowner who has a feeding site called to say Oliana was there. We rushed over, gave her antibiotics, fitted a radio-collar, and irrigated the wound.
Irrigating Oliana's wound - July 10, 2012Sue doubts the wounded bear is actually Oliana. The bear lacks the brown hair on the back of her ears that Sue had used to help identitfy her. That brown hair tends to be lost with age, and this yearling has been shedding lately. We will search for photos of Oliana and also see where this bear roams for further clues as to whether she is Braveheart’s Oliana or a yearling from another female’s territory.
Juliet - July 10, 2012After breakfast, we homed in on Juliet, Sam, Sophie, and Sybil to change the batteries in Juliet’s GPS unit. With blueberries scarce in most patches, Juliet had done an extra good job of locating food. We were expecting as much from her pattern of GPS locations that showed she was foraging slowly along the edge of a big clear-cut. She showed us what she was eating. A fresh scat was full of blueberries, and the family was at the base of an oak tree loaded with green acorns (Quercus rubra).
Red oak acorns - July 10, 2012Here at the northern edge of their range, red oaks don’t get very big, but there were several trees scattered through the forest and clear-cut where the bears were foraging. Juliet had obviously climbed some and broken branches near the top where she had sat in a crotch and pulled branches to her. It looks like a good year for acorns, although oak trees are scarce in the study area.
Jewel, Fern, and Herbie - July 10, 2012After lunch, we visited Jewel, Herbie, and Fern to change Jewel’s GPS batteries. They were resting in a black ash (Fraxinus nigra) swamp on this 81F day. Jewel was good enough to come to the edge of the swamp so participants could watch the battery process without wet feet. Herbie and Fern followed to fairly dry ground. Jewel’s heart rate was a calm 88 beats per minute.
Braveheart in dappled light - July 10, 2012On to big Braveheart who was resting in very dense shade on a hillside covered with balsam fir (Abies balsamea) and round-leafed dogwood (Cornus rugosa). As we walked in down a steep, rocky hillside, she could have been standing next to us undetected because the understory was so thick.
She came to us in a rocky opening and let us change her GPS batteries and take a heart rate (74/minute). We thanked her and headed back to the Research Center where Sue was waiting to take the group out for a session on bear sign tracking.
This session doesn’t include seeing bears, but the participants always come back glowing with how their eyes are opened to wildlife sign most people would never notice. They will go home tomorrow knowing exactly how to tell if bears live around them and knowing better how to tell what the bears are doing.
Great people, great bears, great weather, great day.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center