Braveheart, Free Day, Den Cams, and Mystic Lake - UPDATE November 6, 2015
Geneva on Sept. 29, 2015
Geneva on Sept. 29, 2015
Braveheart is rivaling our local records for late denning. She and her cubs Geneva, Stratton, and Porter showed up last night, November 5, at a feeding station. It was too dark for pictures, the landowner said.
You?ve seen both pictures I used here, but the one of Geneva from September 29 is appropriate because it is a night shot, like the sighting last night. The picture of Braveheart from September 26, shows her already bulked up for winter. Now, nearly 6 weeks later, I wish she would come by here to get weighed. Geneva sticks close by mom, but the two males are more independent and do some roaming on their own.
The two latest entrances into dens I have ever documented in northeastern Minnesota were from my old study. On November 2-3, 1971, Female C and her 3 cubs entered a den after staying in a productive oak stand later than usual before walking some 20 miles back to their territory to enter a den that we still check for occupancy in some years.
Another late denning bear was Male 353 who constructed a den in ?early November 1970? as stated on page 20 of my 1987 Monograph, Effects of food supply and kinship on social behavior, movements, and population dynamics of black bears in northeastern Minnesota. It is publication number 55 on the publications page on bearstudy.org
http://www.bearstudy.org/website/publications/published-papers.html. The sentence about him says ?In the shortest denning period, approximately 5 months, Male 353 constructed a den in early November 1970 and left it in early April 1971."
Braveheart and cubs on Sept. 26, 2015
Braveheart and cubs on Sept. 26, 2015
The only other possible candidate for a November denning I remember was Blackie and her 3 cubs who left the WRI on October 21, 2001 and headed away on a 350-degrees (northerly) bearing the day before I left on a lecture tour. The first chance I had to fly and find them was November 15. We headed out on the 350-degree bearing and just kept flying. Forty-four miles out, we found their telemetry signal and pin-pointed the family a half mile south of Little Eva Lake along the Namakan River in Ontario. I don?t know how long it took them to walk that far. I asked the Ontario government for help in getting in there to remove the radio-collar. On February 19, 2002, Donna and I met 5 government workers along a road where they had snowmobiles for all. We snowmobiled and hiked to the den and found them looking at us from a surface bed. The bedrock was so close to the surface that there are few or no underground denning opportunities. I cut an aspen sapling over 20 feet long to attach the tranquilizer syringe and avoid having to come too close to them and scare them off. Once the mother was tranquilized, the yearlings stayed with her as we tranquilized the yearlings in turn. We ear-tagged the family and learned that the mother was killed by a hunter back in Minnesota in September 2004. She had an unusual penchant for travel.
I got the date wrong for the Free Day coming up at the Bear Center?it?s tomorrow, November 7.
I have another error to confess. On September 8, I wrote that I had the Den Cam Permit application finished. The error is that I somehow deleted it. I tried for the next week to reconstruct it, only to lose it again. That never happened before. But it is another case of ?All things work together for good.? Over the next month I put more into it, but lately decided to save most of it until later in case I need to respond to issues the DNR has raised about Den Cams. I mailed a short version to the DNR today after emailing it yesterday. You can see it at
http://www.bearstudy.org/website/images/stories/images/Updates_2015/20151106_DenCamPermit.pdfKeep your fingers crossed. I?m hoping that cooler heads will prevail and that the DNR will grant the permit, get behind it, and take pride in what this project can bring to Minnesota with DNR support.
I?m looking forward to the next couple days with Donna. First it?s Mystic Lake and reconnecting with Lily Fans. Not sure what to do the next day. We thought we were going to the zoo and maybe the arboretum, but now a legislator mentioned that an exhibit I?d like to see about my work is showing at the University of Minnesota?s Bell Museum of Natural History in Minneapolis. Then a Lily Fan called to say 11,000 sandhill cranes are gathered just 17 miles off the highway that is on the way home, plus we want to see a couple friends on the way. It?s up to Donna.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
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