Last night I mentioned I hadn’t gotten a picture of Sophie’s cubs yet. A community feeder stepped up. Just because I couldn’t get a picture of Sophie’s cubs didn’t mean he couldn’t. 
Sophie and cubsHe got this revealing picture of Sophie and her two cubs at one of his sunflower seed piles. From the looks of the cub on the right, I’d guess it’s a female. To verify, we’ll remember it’s the one with the slightly darker face.
Bear sleeping by troughHe also had pictures of other wildlife that visit his feeder at times—a gray fox from a couple weeks ago and a buck white-tailed deer in velvet about a year ago on June 28, 2015.
Bear in bird bathHe showed how bears find comfort in his bird bath (August 13, 2015) and by sleeping within easy reach of the food (August 12, 2015).
He had a cute picture of Spanky as a cub back on May 27, 2015 to compare with the recent pictures of him.
Spanky as a cub - 5/25/15
We were glad today to see battle-worn Loppy, the survivor, return. He looks as ragged as ever—with a couple new scars. I don’t know if Loppy has extra testosterone and tries harder to win the mating battles. I don’t know if he takes on bears bigger than himself and doesn’t know when to run. Maybe he doggedly wins at a cost. Somehow, one of his ears is nearly missing and the other is almost as bad. Part of his right upper lip is gone. His head is covered with scars that are mostly hidden with fur in the pictures.
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| Loppy | ||
We have known him for years. With people, he is a mild mannered, somewhat wary bear. He is never aggressive, and we never hear of this easily recognizable bear even being seen away from the couple feeding stations he visits. He is another personality for course participants to get to know.
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| Woods Lake | Deer in velvet | Gray fox |
It felt good today to learn that people who had heard my talks at the International Bear Conference were sharing the information and hoping the talks were on our website for their colleagues to see in their entirety. We will get them up as soon as I can solve a couple technical issues and find the time to do that—soon.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center