Honey, a Bunny, and a Marten - UPDATE February 7, 2016
Snowshoe Hare
Snowshoe Hare
In this 3-minute video, Honey ventures outside but I couldn?t tell what she was doing
https://www.facebook.com/ toni.embree.50/videos/ o.139730642706794/ 1182512838448011/ ?type=2&theater.
In this 1-minute video a biologist friend sent me, a marten (Martes Americana) is chasing a snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) down an open highway. I?ve never seen a marten chase a hare and didn?t know who was going to win. I thought the hare would outrun the marten, but when the marten kept gaining, I wanted the hare to get on the snow and use it?s snowshoe feet, but that didn?t work either. I wanted the hare to win, although I know that is biased, and martens have to eat, too. How can hares escape these fast runners? I know hares spend a lot of time sitting still, camouflaged in cover, and not leaving tracks. Maybe that?s their best bet. I once crawled to within two feet of a hare for a low-angle picture in winter, and it just sat there (pictured), but it knew me. I wonder if their new white fur and dense under fur in winter reduces their odor, making it more advantageous to sit tight rather than trying to outrun some predators. I don?t know.
https://www.facebook.com/james.loon.3/videos/10205553550269791I got a nice email from Ben Kilham of New Hampshire. He has been the subject of several National Geographic TV specials about his unusual rehab work in which he becomes the cub?s mother?just the opposite of the hands-off approach of most rehabbers. Most people would think bonding with cubs would lead to the bears going up to people. In fact, that was what National Geographic TV was worried about when they asked me about him when they were considering their first special on him. I said go for it. Now, some two decades later, I wondered how his favorite bear Squirty is doing and, if she is still alive, how much trouble she got into in her long lifetime. He wrote back, ?Squirt is now 20. She hasn?t gotten into much trouble, but I did start providing a regular food source for her in 2003 when we had two consecutive years of no hard mast. Squirty does not come to my house. She is 4 miles away. Squirty is friendly to me, but does not like or trust strangers. I don?t habituate any of my study bears to anybody but myself and don?t have public access to our rehab facility. I find nuisance behavior is more about the number of human residences and corresponding attractants in a female?s home range. Natural food supply has a big influence. State wide reports of nuisance behavior and kills go up and down with natural food availability. The reason bears are a nuisance is complex, hunger is a big problem, The amount of bear human interface (humans living in bear habitat), the personality of the bear, I certainly would not put habituation and food conditioning on top of the list. Squirty has granddaughters that are friendly with me and get food, but have home ranges with no human residences; they don?t get in any trouble. The majority of cubs we release don?t get into trouble. The reality is if there weren?t attractants at human residences, there would be no nuisance problems. Unfortunately it is easier to punish a bear than a person.?
Ben sounds a lot like me.
So I emailed Terry DeBruyn who walked with a wild bear named Carmen and her clan in Michigan?s Upper Peninsula from 1990 to 1999 and featured them in his great book Walking With Bears (2001). Terry went on to become Florida?s bear biologist, the National Park Service?s bear biologist in Alaska, the head of polar bear research for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, and an Ecosystem Biologist for the U.S. Forest Service in Michigan. I asked him how much trouble Carmen and her clan got into. He wrote back, ?I was not aware of any complaints against Carmen or her clan during my research or after.?
Pretty much like we find here in Eagles Nest Township.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
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