Chickadee flying to Lynn's hand - Oct 25, 2012 Snow. And with it the return of a flock of Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) and Red-breasted Nuthatches (Sitta Canadensis) that know us. When some of them fluttered around, we got a handful of sunflower hearts and a chickadee landed immediately. It’s time to put seeds on the railing. The birds are hungry. We thought the wet snow would melt, but it is still here at sundown.
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2013 Shadow's Clan Calendarhe 2013 calendars and Christmas Cards are here and ready to go. The 12” x 24” Shadow’s Clan calendar is spectacular ($15.95), as is the 1-page 11” x 23” Ted, Lucky, and Honey calendar ($4.95). The two together are $17.95. We love the Greeting Card with little Fern standing up with her young eyes shining, all circled with a frame of holiday red with hearts and snowflakes. The contours of the frame fit the contours of little Fern. A package of 10 cards is $9.95. But you may want to hold off until November 1 when dozens of other new items (around 50) will be added to the Web Store. You can likely save on shipping cost by getting everything together. Calendars and cards can be seen at http://www.bear.org/website/new-items.html.
Fern Holiday CardWe saw an article in the October issue of Alaska Magazine that told us again that education is needed. It was about a woman who encountered a grizzly mother and cubs and ran away. Nothing happened, but the article was about how lucky she was that the bear didn’t chase her. One of the most common pieces of advice is to never run from a bear because you could trigger a predatory response. The advice assumes that bears are out there looking for someone scared and vulnerable that they dare go after and eat. We don’t know of any case where running triggered a predatory bear attack. We have no idea how the advice started. Whenever we see or hear the advice written or spoken, we ask the author or speaker for an example. We still have not heard of a single example. If anyone knows of one, please let us know.
2013 Ted-Honey-Lucky CalendarHow would this advice start? Did someone think bears would respond like predatory foxes, cats, or wolves? In our experience, we’ve heard many stories about “I ran one way and the bear ran the other.” We’ve heard of rare cases where a person was under attack by the rare predatory bear and had the attack continue as they ran away. But we have yet to hear of the first true case where running triggered a bear attack.
We know a couple cases where a black bear pursued someone who ran away but didn’t touch the person. One case involved old 812. You can see the video of her at http://tinyurl.com/812-bluff-charge. She had a rare habit of making full all-out running charges to defend her cubs. Lynn wanted a picture. He lay down with his camera and had his assistant provoke a charge and run past him with the bear on the assistant’s heels. While glancing back at the bear, the assistant tripped. As he hit the ground, the bear went through some fancy athletics to avoid touching him as she turned and ran back to her cubs. The photo shows Old 812 starting a charge with her nose long and her ears back. Scary. But she never touched anyone in many charges.
Charging bearAnother big charge story was told to us by Dr. Gary Alt who dropped a cub at the entrance of a den to introduce it to a wild mother. The cub screamed. The mother came out. Gary ran. The bear continued after him but somehow stayed a few feet behind him and never quite touched him. Gary turned and yelled at her. She turned and ran back to the cub and den. Mission successful.
We have so many stories to tell. All could be told with great drama, gripping fear, and lots of things that could have happened. But they all end the same way. Nothing happened. In 45 years of pushing the envelope, we have never had a bear come after us and hurt us. Stories like that are so rare, we probably never will live to see something like that firsthand.
Another video of archive footage from 2007 is posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Yd-fcj3mY. While June’s cubs sleep high in a tree, she forages on a variety of foods including ant pupae, interrupted fern stems, bedstraw, and large-leaf aster. The cubs get hungry and come down to mob her. She interrupts the nursing to move to a more comfortable spot. These videos bring back warm memories.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center