Donna's cubWe were very sorry to hear yesterday that Representative David Dill (60), the legislator that killed the DNR’s feeding bill this past spring, died of cancer. He knew how grateful we are. Our condolences to his family.
Another death occurred in Yellowstone National Park where tracks of a grizzly and cub were next to a dead man. ABC World News Tonight called here for bear background information. I haven’t seen the news broadcast yet. I told the interviewer that grizzly mothers can be defensive of cubs when startled on a trail, and that 70% of the deaths from grizzlies are by mothers defending cubs but I don’t know of a single death from a black bear mother defending cubs. I said only about one black bear in a million kills someone but the rate for grizzlies was much higher. A grizzly is 26 times more likely to kill someone than a black bear is. I may have mentioned that the more fearful a bear is of people the more likely it is to engage in defensive behaviors when startled. Where bears are habituated to people they are less defensive.
It was a great day of bear-viewing with many calls from the community feeding stations letting us know which bears were where for the group to see. Ursula, Braveheart, Donna, and Guy were stars.
Male bear on picnic tableThe cub picture is one of 15-year-old Donna’s 4 cubs. Donna is one of the cubs shown on my lap in the documentary “The Man Who Walks With Bears” that was filmed back in 2000. The picnicking bear was having a good day at his community feeding station.
For newcomers, over a dozen households in this community have been feeding bears for decades, and the community has fewer bear problems than any comparable community I know. The bears are comfortable with people at the feeding stations but are wary in the woods, which is how bears here get to be as old as 28-year-old Shadow, 15-year-old Donna, and other clan bears that have lived far beyond the average age of bears elsewhere in Minnesota.
Half of the Bear Course group of 8 is a surgical team who watched the Den Cams between surgeries in Florida. Two of the 8 are corporate attorneys who follow the updates closely in England. Another is a speech therapist from Ireland. She has an amazing knowledge of the research bears’ lives starting back with Hope. The eighth participant is an accountant from Oregon who saved the day by bringing hazelnuts that she remembered being a favorite food from her last Bear Course here.
Looking forward to tomorrow.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.