Aster approachesThere was drama today at the Bear Center and deep in the woods!
Holly and TedAt the Bear Center, Holly and Ted made another breakthrough today. Ted made friendly noises to Holly as Heidi fed them together. Holly was nervous (flattened ears, extended upper lip, vocalizations) and ran when he moved to get up. She quickly circled back and a few minutes later nearly touched noses with him. Later, she calmly lay down about 12 feet away. Later, when it was Ted’s turn to be in his pen, Holly stopped by and climbed a tree next to it—the same tree Lucky climbed a year ago. She had never checked around his pen before. We are very encouraged about their budding relationship.
Out in the woods, Lily and Aster had some kind of drama and suspense going through the night and into today.
Ted, Holly, and HeidiFor background, Aster has been concentrating her efforts in an area we believe she considers her territory—part of June’s old territory. It includes a community-feeding site used last year by Aster and June and her cubs (Cole and Ember).
Holly up tree near Ted's penLily spent the night not far from the feeding site. At 1:20 AM, Aster arrived and remained in the vicinity of Lily for three and a half hours. We would have liked to hear the vocalizations between them as we have heard when other potential competitors were near each other—huffing, moaning, etc. Then, the two went opposite directions at 4:49 AM. Aster went west a couple hundred yards to the feeding site, and Lily headed away to the south. An hour and 10 minutes later, at 5:59 AM, Aster went back to where Lily had been during the night. Finding her gone, she spent the next hour and 50 minutes tracking Lily 2.15 miles.
Was Aster defending her territory? If so, could 3-year-old Aster actually think she could run off 7-year-old Lily? Did Aster feel so strongly about the territory where she will likely give birth this winter that she would risk injury to defend it against Lily? Even with a healing leg?
AsterWhen Aster caught up to Lily, they were in an area more Lily’s territory than Aster’s, considering recent use. Their GPS locations were at the same place at the same time (7:49 AM). We don’t know what happened, but their paths then split. Lily headed toward the center of her territory and Aster went the opposite way. We checked on Aster. She was fine. No injuries. Maybe they didn’t clash. Had Aster’s persistence made her point to Lily? We wish we could have seen the interaction between them. As it is, the whole thing remains a mystery.
Aster with healing woundIn the old days, radio-tracking from a distance raised more questions than it answered. The only way to answer those questions, of course, was to actually witness interactions and then see how things developed over time. That’s one of the reasons we explored the possibility of walking with bears. At first, we wondered how territorial bears would treat us once they lost their fear of us. We wondered how mothers with cubs would respond to a human getting between them and their cubs. To our knowledge, no one had ever attempted what we were trying to do. We were driven by extreme curiosity about bear life. Of course, we found that walking with bears was possible and that these intelligent animals came to accept our behavior as non-threatening and us as creatures to be ignored. We never had a bear come after us and hurt us. As time went on, we learned the kinship relations among bears of known age and backgrounds, helping us interpret interactions in light of their histories.
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Videoing Aster is interesting that some of the trail cam pictures at the feeding site last fall showed Aster peacefully coexisting with orphaned cubs Cole, and Ember. Aster was limping badly on her wounded leg at the time. With her leg healing well, could Aster have run female yearling Ember off as a territorial competitor while tolerating male yearling Cole? Could that be why we don’t see Ember in the trail cam pictures at the feeding site this year?
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.