Charlie Russell and Lynn Rogers Ted must not be that hungry. Maybe it was the heat (80’s). A bug landed on top of his paw. He looked at it for an extra long time, tasted it, and put it back. Maybe not all bugs are created equal.
Out in the woods, Juliet needed her batteries changed. Mike and Lorie went into action. The handful of nuts they brought didn’t cut it with her at first. She just wanted to lie still in the shade. Finally, she got up and participated in the battery routine and then lay right back down again.
For the rest of us, it was a day of home chores (laundry, lawn-mowing, dump runs) and straightening up to get ready. Tonight, we welcome Charlie Russell.
Juliet in dappled sunlightDo black bears eat turtle eggs? A rehabber who often lets his bears run free sent an email saying, “I have watched a couple of snappers lay eggs, but later my bear cubs found them and ate them.” So they do. But they might not be high on the list of preferred foods. What bears will eat and what they will do depends upon what the alternatives are.
Around here, turtle nests are often dug up and the eggs eaten, but we’ve never found a track to incriminate bears. The areas are gravelly, which makes it hard to find any tracks. We also haven’t found turtle shells in bear droppings, but that might mean that they spit out turtle shells like foxes do—or like bears spit out shells from bird eggs or peanuts. Bear have talented tongues for separating good from bad and letting the bad drop out the sides of the mouth where the diastema in their upper and lower premolars are.
It’s 11:00 PM and Lynn and Charlie Russell are still swapping tales at the kitchen table. We look forward to more of the same as we all learn from each other this week.
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.