Deer eating a "deer" appleAt the Bear Center, Holly got in the spirit of Halloween by tearing into a pumpkin.
At the WRI, a couple who stopped by to talk about species accounts they are writing for the Northwoods Ecology Hall brought some “bear apples” they’d picked up in an orchard. 
Holly with her pumpkinWe scattered them in the yard. A deer appeared and didn’t care what kind of apples they were. To her, they were deer apples. She showed us that she preferred the small ones (photo), probably because they were easier to break up. Deer don’t have upper incisors or canine teeth, so they use their rear teeth (molars and premolars) to reduce apples to pieces they can swallow. When the smaller apples were gone, she tried a bigger one. It was harder to handle. The first time she tried to bite it in two with her back teeth, it fell out of her mouth. On the next try, she bit it in half, spit out one of the halves, chewed up the other half, and then finished the first one.
RC and her cubs - 10-1-14A Lily Fan who helps out at one of the Community Feeding Stations found that a trail cam captured this great picture of RC and her cubs on alert the evening of October 1.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.