Braveheart's cubsAt the Bear Center today, Ted enjoyed the pool and the staff, interns, and volunteers cleaned pens. All good.
Meanwhile, I was telling someone that I feared we had lost Braveheart. She is usually one of the first here in spring and could be late this year with cubs but not this late. Then I get an email from a couple old friends, and friends of bears, who are one of the community bear feeders. They had a bear with a V and wondered who it could be. She has 3 cubs. I called, “Is it a big V (possibly Braveheart) or a small v (possibly Daisy)?” A big V. Hey, that could be Braveheart, can I come over. Yes. It was. Relief. Braveheart is 13 and one of the bears we count on to survive, which she is good at. She was the same old Braveheart. This was the second evening she was there. I look forward to Black Bear Field Course participants meeting her and the cubs. We left the family in the woods and after 
Braveheart and Lynn Rogersfew minutes were heading back to the WRI to write the update. Then “she” crossed their driveway—and a fourth cub joined them. It was 15-year-old Donna—the same old Donna who spent her first years visiting the WRI and then moved some miles east and gave her allegiance to another community feeder. I’ve seldom seen her in the last decade, but we were immediately comfortable. She stayed a minute or two and then had to tend to the cubs. Four is a handful. When all four were visible, it was getting too dark for the camera to focus, and then the moment passed.
I wish we’d see Faith, but I doubt we will with her having moved so far away, like Donna did from here. We haven’t seen Faith for a couple years and don’t expect to. She is in a hard to access area without a radio-collar, so we can’t go out and find her, and hunting pressure there should be low.
Cleaning Lucky's denThe neighborhood is starting to worry about Shadow, the all time champion survivor here—now 28 if she made it through fall. She, like Braveheart, should have cubs, which could delay her. There still is hope. Especially now that we see Braveheart showing up so late. We are especially interested to see if Shadow has cubs with her this year at her age. Old 641, the oldest bear we studied had her last litter at 26 and should have had another at 28 but there were a couple poor food years, and she didn’t get fat enough with her bad teeth. 
Cleaning Lucky's denThen came a good food year and we thought she could put on enough weight, but a hunter killed her that fall at 29 ¾ years old before she could give birth and there was no way we could see her reproductive tract. We’ll see if Shadow can break her record.
Thank you for your donations during the Half Birthday Party yesterday! I was tied up with Ecology Hall most of yesterday and had to miss some of the festivities, but they told me today about the help you gave.
Thank you for all you do, including the nuts you are buying through https://nuts.com/gifts/lily.html.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.