Lily is with a male
June 24, 2010 – 9:43 PM CDT
Hope fed at the feeding site last night at 9:20 PM. She checked back to find no food there at 5:11 AM today, then didn’t return again until 8:42 PM tonight. This picture of ripe Juneberries might explain why.
Hope’s radio-collar arrived today. Now we’ll see if she lets us put it on her. We’re very curious what she does and how far she travels between visits to the feeding site. We wonder how much time she spends foraging, escaping up trees, and why she is often wet when she arrives at the feeding site.
When we checked on Lily today, she was with a male. We didn’t see him at first. The first clue was that Lily wouldn’t look at us. She was only concerned where the male went. She cast about until she spotted him 40 yards away silently disappearing in the underbrush. Following her gaze, we saw him, too. Satisfied where he was, Lily relaxed and let us check her over. She is in full estrus.
We wondered who the male was. One-eyed Jack has been in the area the last two days, and we wondered if he was the suitor. Probably not. Jack showed up at the field station alone this evening. Now, near the end of mating season (except for Lily), Jack was no longer standing up and rubbing on trees although he stood up to smell a couple that bears often rubbed during the height of the mating season. He has his share of fresh wounds. Deep, swollen tooth punctures on his muzzle, cheek, and forehead are draining pus, plus an 8-inch diameter area on his back is scraped bare with no damage to the skin. We don’t understand that one.
Jack stepped on a scale to give us his end-of-mating weight—360 pounds, which probably will be his lightest weight of the year. Males lose as much or more weight during the 6 weeks of mating in late May and June as they lose during the 6 months of winter. Last year, he weighed 648.5 on August 30.
Jack is probably in his teens. He was already big when we first met him in August 2002. As is true for many big males (and contrary to popular thought), Jack is a mild-mannered bear that we feel comfortable being around. He is comfortable with us, too, so he gives us good data on mating when he accompanies radio-collared females we walk with. Jack is in one of the mating scenes in the full UK version of Bearwalker of the Northwoods. He is the male in the mating battle against Lumpy in that version of the documentary (and in the mating battle video on bear.org). Tonight, he was his usual mild-mannered self with a heart rate of 84/minute.
So we are still wondering who is with Lily. Tomorrow, Lily is due for a GPS unit change. We hope we can spot the male and identify him when and if we can catch up with Lily.
Thank you for your continued support for the research and education.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, North American Bear Center