White-tailed deer - Sept 24, 2012 2-year-old Sharon’s GPS unit stopped transmitting today. Had the batteries run out or was she in a den? The batteries were due for a change anyway, so we drove to the spot some 9 miles away and—sure enough—she was in a den. She may not be completely settled down yet, but she spent time today in a den. We’ve been watching her GPS readings for concentrations of points that could indicate denning activity. We hadn’t seen a cluster of readings in this exact spot but we did notice several clusters in the general area. Looking back at Sharon’s old GPS locations, we see that she visited that den on Sept 21 and likely spent from 5:30 AM to 1:10 PM in the den.
Sharon peeks out - Sept 24, 2012All was quiet. She was resting inside. After several “It’s me bears” she appeared. We were above and behind the entrance looking down at her. She gave a quick glance back at us, scanned other directions, then calmly came out and climbed up to us. We gave her nuts, and she let us change her batteries. For another handful of nuts, she let us grope for a heart rate which was hard to find under her fat. Eventually, we felt it—72/minute. That’s higher than we expected and probably explains her travels away from the den. She is traveling again as we write this. She is one of the last of the females we believe to be pregnant to enter a den. The other is 3-year-old Star. All the older radio-collared females that should be pregnant are now in or at dens.
Sharon climbs out - Sept 24, 2012We checked the signals and GPS locations of the other radio-collared bears, except Star (tomorrow), and all are fine. From their signals, June is in and out of her den, probably still raking in bedding for the cubs coming in January. Lily’s signal was still from her den area but barely active, probably meaning we listened while she was resting. We’re not exactly sure where Braveheart is, but her telemetry signal showed her active out in the boonies. She may or may not be at the den we discovered over a week ago.
Sharon climbs up to us - Sept 24, 2012Juliet and cubs are still at their den—in and out, according to their GPS locations. As we write this, Juliet is 0.5 miles from the den. Is she just out for a stroll or has she decided to move to another den? Jewel is still traveling around with Herbie and Fern.
The radio-collared yearlings Daisy, Faith, and Aster are doing what we’d expect yearlings to be doing this time of year—resting a lot, and probably eating alder and willow leaves.
Blazing red maple - Sept 24, 2012Bright maple leaves may not be exciting to most of you, especially Lily Fans living in New England where fall colors are legendary. But here where there are fewer maples, brilliant red maples (Acer rubrum) get us excited. When we saw orange leaves blazing against the blue sky, we had to snap a picture.
Another treat was on our way in from radio-tracking at dusk. A family of deer browsing beside the road unafraid. We stopped and snapped a picture from inside the vehicle only 15 feet away.
An email from a long-time (40 years) Eagles Nest resident showed the attitude toward bears that makes this place special. He was fishing last night on Lake 2 and spotted an uncollared bear at the shore getting a drink. He was hoping we’d know who it was (we didn’t). He also wrote about seeing a collared bear in his yard 3 years ago. He said “She winked at me and I blew her a kiss, and she kept moving on, no problems...but what a great experience!”
We are grateful to the guides and hunters for not shooting any radio-collared bears this year.
We see your donations coming in through bear.org for the Hope Learning Center. Thank you. Lily Fans are coming forward to help with the ground-breaking, too. Everyone is invited, of course—2 PM Sunday, September 30th—free admission.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center