Yearling Anxiety
May 15, 2010 – 9:18 PM CDT
As Lily, June, and Braveheart continue their usual patterns, Braveheart with a male and June without, Cal, Ty, and Jewel stole the show today.
Cal continued his trek toward Duluth, moving another 8 miles south by 8 AM when we lost his signal. When we got it back again at 3 PM, he was heading back north. Then he bedded down until about 8 PM, when he turned south again. We’ll see how far he moves overnight. Most of his movements have been at night as is common for bears in strange areas. We’ll say more about him tomorrow.
Bow’s yearling Ty is under constant anxiety attack. He has been spending most of his time high in a white pine. Today, he came down midday and was a bundle of nerves, jerking his head one way, then another, with each gust of wind. He’d start away from the white pine and then run back. Then he flitted back and forth between two white pines, afraid to leave the safety of these escape trees.
We figured June’s yearling Jewel was going through the same anxiety and went to check on her. She was in a beautiful forest of white pines, the most spectacular white pine grove we’ve seen. But we couldn’t get a look at her. Her signal would be strong and then fade. She wouldn’t trust “It’s me, bear.” An hour and a half and 0.9 miles later, she became a believer. She was so nervous she pounced forward, blew, and slammed her front feet down, showing her conflicting drives as she came forward. Then she calmed down and reverted to her good self. Her heart rate was 108 after a few minutes, which is not that high for a yearling. We were glad to make the connection with her so we can get her used to being joined in the forest and being accompanied to gather data.
It will be interesting to see how her mother June deals with giving up part of her territory to daughter Lily and probably more now to daughter Jewel.
We posted more video from our May 12 visit with Lily and Hope at http://www.bear.org/website/lily-a-hope/den-cam-video-clips.html.
Thank you for your contributions.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, North American Bear Center