WRI DrivewaySnow that falls this time of year here usually stays until April. The picture is before the additional snowfall this afternoon. We hope Cole, Ember, and the Mystery Bear all found secure dens for the winter.
Caribou platformBack in 2007, it snowed nearly every time Randy and Sharon Herrell drove up from Michigan to deliver the taxidermy platforms, counters, etc. for the Bear Center. Today, Randy and their son Tom delivered beautiful platforms for the moose and woodland caribou—driving yet again through a snowstorm. The pictures show the finished caribou platform and Randy reassembling the moose platform that was too big for the double doors behind it. Thank you Herrell’s—again!
Randy assembles moose platformWe are leaning toward an identity for the Mystery Bear—2-year-old Daisy, daughter of Bow. Daisy is pictured as a cub on the October page of the 2013 Shadow’s Clan Calendar. What led us to that picture is a trail cam picture from 10:42 PM on November 23 that showed a little more of the white mark. It looked enough like the lop-sided white mark on Daisy to start us looking for pictures of Daisy. Then we looked at more trail cam pictures and matched up the light muzzle and the light eyebrows. Daisy also makes sense because last winter she denned only a mile and a quarter away from where the trail cam pictures were taken and when she headed out from the feeding site that night she headed in the direction of her old den. However, when she headed out at 5:30 PM on the evening of the 28th she went nearly 90 degrees off that direction. Daisy is trusting with certain people in a location where she has come to feel safe, but she is skittish otherwise. Her skittish behavior at the feeding site was consistent with what we’d expect from her. Daisy is old enough to be pregnant.
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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.