Honeys dry denHoney, Ted, Lucky, and Holly are high and dry in their dens at the Bear Center as rain and melting create rivulets over the frozen soil to form little ponds and often flood dens dug into the soil. Donna lost one of her cubs to such flooding in 2007. June’s den flooded that same year and temporarily forced June to evacuate with Lily, Cal, and Bud. Juliet permanently evacuated her flooded den with Sybil, Sophie, and Sam in the warm spring of 2012, and flooding forced RC out of her den with Keefer, Billy, and Trax in 2004.
Seeing the water accumulate around Honey’s den today, makes us wonder how bears like Jewel, Colleen, Sophie, Fern, RC, and others are doing with their newborn cubs.
Melting pond at the NABCAt the Bear Center, the pond has melted more than it had melted a month later last year when Holly had so much fun romping and sliding on the ice as a Lily Fan captured this 9-minute video on April 12, 2015. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIvsOI9CurY&feature=youtu.be
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center