At the Bear Center, Lucky and Holly are getting plenty to eat, thanks in part to Lily Fans. Lucky’s weight today is 430 lbs, and little Holly is up to 270 pounds as a 3-year-old. 
Mystery bear with cubsShe might be taking more than her share.
At the WRI, a mystery mother appeared last evening with two cubs. She is skittish; has a chest blaze; and has small, faint eyebrow patches. Two cubs is more common as a first litter than in subsequent litters, and she has a narrow head; both of which point to her being a young bear. The team will be poring over clan pictures. If she is a clan bear, she is likely 3-4 years old. If she is a non-clan bear taking a trip into new territory, as 40% of females did in my previous study, she could be older. The average age of first-time mothers in that study was 6.3 years. We hope to at least exclude her as a clan bear if we can’t exactly identify her. The chest blaze will help. The lighter-faced cub on the left is a male. The one on the right (with the blaze like the mother’s) hasn’t given us a good enough look yet to tell.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center