Competing with Bears for Attention - UPDATE July 14, 2023
Chipmunk
We had a good number of bears for the recent course but another animal was almost as popular. It was an Eastern Chipmunk that I had an unusual experience with a few days ago. I was surprised to see this chipmunk coming toward, getting in my path and standing still when I could have stepped on him. I stopped—my feet less than a foot from him. What would he do next. He came forward and climbed my pantleg to my knee before dropping off and looking for food elsewhere.
Chipmunk w/cheeks full
Chipmunk w/cheeks full
During the course, we watched the chipmunk mingle just as closely with Cedric the bear, filling its cheeks from the same pile of food Cedric was eating. Sometimes, Cedric gently used a paw to push him aside. Cedric may be an unusually gentle bear, guessing from the way he is tolerated by other bears, bigger or smaller, the friendly sounds bigger males made to him last year and the willingness many bears have to play with him.
In this course, this chipmunk distracted some from their interactions with bears. People were picking him up, stroking his back, and seeing him fearlessly continue his quest to fill his cheeks. In the process, he climbed pant legs, checked shoulders, went across the back of people’s necks, or just explored across their laps. He fearlessly gets into the confines of a container that says “Rich Pure Taste” even though there are people nearby who have gently touched him or stroked him as he kept stuffing his cheeks. He hasn’t bitten anyone. Watching his (or her) quick dashes away to its hole to empty its cheeks and return in a minute or three, we got into counting how many hazelnuts he’d take at a time—typically 6 to 11, usually 7-9.
With his cheeks stuffed bigger than anyone had seen before, we had to take pictures, like the one in the container with nine nuts stuffed with the outer six making protruding bulges, three on each side. Very commonly, he would stuff eight into its cheeks and hold the ninth in its mouth as he ran off to his winter larder. With the bonanza of nuts he is sharing with the bears, both will have good winters—bears with a good layer of fat, and this chipmunk with plenty to eat during his periodic winter wakeups when he will bring his heart rate and temperature up to near normal and fill his stomach with what we are seeing him store.
Thank you for all you do,
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
