As we honor the sacrifice and loss of those who died in the military, I feel thankful for the lives we have in America the land of the free.
Flag at Bear Center
On the bears, new reports today are of two mothers, each with two cubs, that the team will be comparing with pictures for identification. Here is a picture of one of them I was sent for a start. We’ll be looking for chest blazes, eyebrow patches, behaviors, sex of cubs, etc.
Unis
Andrea’s yearlings are still together peaceful as ever, as Andrea herself is probably off making scent trails for males to find and follow. The yearlings still have their winter coats with temperatures in the 70’s F and not beginning to shed. I’m curious to see how Snowball’s distinctive face changes as she sheds. I’m still learning about yearling social relationships after family break-up. One reason that all is peaceful among Andrea’s three is probably that there is only one female. If there is more than one female yearling, they often become competitive after family breakup as they begin to carve out their own individual sub-territories within their mother’s territory. They then expand their sub-territories each year to eventually become their own territories if the mother can shift her own territory to leave space for them to give birth to their own cubs.
Quaking aspen branch
On another note, a herring gull stopped by holding this branch, set it down to eat, and then picked it up and flew off. Is the branch nesting material. Whatever its reason for carrying it, it was nice of the gull to show me that some quaking aspen branches still have female catkins that will soon be releasing fluffy seeds that can blow far in a wind. That is how they spread beyond the local clone in which all the trees grow from a single root system and all are of the same genetics and sex.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center