Star - June 6, 2013Last winter, only one cub voice was heard at 4-year-od Star’s den. Thinking we might have missed something, we tried again in late winter. Still only one cub was heard. When Star emerged from her den she left her collar behind, so we weren’t able to get visual confirmation until recently. One it is.
Star sniffs the scene - June 6, 2013We had a collar reserved for either 13-year-old Donna (our 1st choice) or 4-year-old Star—if she had only one cub. It’s important for us to collect data on another mother of a single litter, so today Star was collared.
Star was seen a couple days ago intently investigating the scene of the mating battle. We did not see her cub then, but we did today when she was collared. All appears to be well with Star’s little family.
June & cubs on logging roadMike has been getting a workout these past couple days. Yesterday he located June and changed her GPS batteries—and he did it solo. Unfortunately, right after he changed the batteries, June fell asleep on her back and the unit could not get a lock on the satellites. For some reason the GPS unit still hadn’t recovered from June’s nap by this morning…so back Mike went—this time to swap out her GPS unit. June is back on the map. Good going Mike!
Keeping the GPS units transmitting is a challenge and it’s wonderful to have help with the task. The 3 new Research Assistants are working out well and we greatly appreciate their hard work and dedication.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.