Trying out our new teeth! All the better to eat with, Mom.
A review today of archived Den Cam footage from March 25 showed at least 2 of Juliet's cubs have developing teeth at 61 days of age.
Which turns our thoughts to food. Is it possible to have two great food years in a row? Last year was one of the two best food years we have seen. With the extra snow to moisten the soil like the unusually snowy April did last year; will we have another great berry crop like last year?
Last year, bears defied the usual claims about fed bears becoming lazy and dependent. With a great berry crop, the bears made few visits to the community feeding sites. They were mostly off in the woods eating their preferred berries. A man who has long been one of the main feeders in the community said he didn’t get a visit until late August when one bear showed up. Several people said there were too few bears coming to bother putting out food.
Honey and Holly were unusually active today. Honey made her first trek back into the forest, disappearing for much of the day. Tonight she is back in her window den.
Holly seemed agitated, which made us wonder if Honey ventured near her den, which has been Honey’s den in the past.
The pond cam went down at a bad time today. The technology team couldn’t get on it because they were out in the woods getting Juliet’s system up and running. The cloudy skies of late hadn’t produced enough solar power, and the system shut down, interrupting the flow of data.
Some photos of Juliet's den from today.
 All claws |
 Peeking |
 Cub play |
 Cub shows teeth |
 Juliet pulls cub back |
 Venturing out |
 Cub bluster |
 Peeking from behind |
 Cubs playing |
 Cubs play some more |
 Getting so big! |
 All three nurse |
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center