Date mash with bear teeth marksLily Fans sent good information about turtle eggs that don’t hatch, as we saw here with the 52 eggs from the road-killed snapping turtle of June 17 this year. One Lily Fan said he did exactly what we did and the eggs didn’t hatch. He also watched a natural nest—same story. The literature says that a female snapping turtle can hold sperm for several seasons, using it as necessary. I’m wondering if sometimes they run out. Not hatching may be a more common problem than we thought.
On another downer note, a couple days ago a male black bear was killed on the highway so close to the Bear Center that the impact knocked down the mailbox. I got there too late to see the bear before the DNR took the carcass away. The location is over 11 miles away. I doubt if it’s a bear we know.
In the latest issue of Ursus, one of the articles mentioned that a bear eclipsed the longest non-dispersal movement on record, a bear we radio-tracked 126 miles to an oak stand and 126 miles back home to a den in 1976. The radio-tracking took most of our budget that year but solved a mystery. Now, with GPS, researchers from New Mexico tracked a male black bear 175 miles north nearly to Castle Rock, Colorado. The bear returned to New Mexico the next year. It is exciting to see what new technology (like Den Cams) can do to expand our knowledge of bears.
In another article in that issue a parasitologist discovered the first Baylisascaris worm ever reported in an Andean Bear (a.k.a. spectacled bear), the species of bear which I had reported in 1976 was the only species of bear that this common parasite had never been found in. Now it has.
A Lily Fan asked if I would again give the addresses where bear food checks can be sent. My home address (145 West Conan Street, Ely, MN 55731) or the WRI address (1482 Trygg Road, Ely, MN 55731) are both good. I get them at either place and give them to the assistant bookkeeper to add to the bear food fund. We’re still working on paying for this year’s food in this year of scarce natural food. As I mentioned before, there were no complaints from Eagles Nest Community this year, which says we kept the bears out of trouble and made them less susceptible to hunters’ baits. At this moment, one of Braveheart’s cubs is putting teeth marks on a block of date mash. Thank you so much.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center