Fall berries, Lucky and biscuits,
Tasha shows off and Holly is curious.
Bear Weights:
Lucky 475 lbs. • Holly 296 lbs. • Tasha 340 lbs.
To compare their weight from last year at this time:
Lucky 497 lbs. Holly 355 lbs. Tasha 374 lbs.
Bear News – August 26, 2023
The fruits of the season are somewhat still available. Spikenard (Nardostachys jatamansi), Raspberry (rubius idaeus), Pin cherry or Fire cherry (Prunus pensylvanica), Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), Beaked hazelnuts (Corylus cornuta), Juneberry can also be called serviceberry, saskatoon, or wild plum (Amelancher arborea) and Round leaf dogwood (cornus rugosa). The foods available that our bears don’t eat are Rose hips (Rosa canina L) and Mountain ash berries (Sorbus americana).
Mrs. Donna Rogers and her family picked and harvested quarts of chokecherries for the bears. She even enlisted Dr. Rogers to help. We are hopeful that the undigested seeds are planted (distributed by scat) throughout the enclosure.
One of our local natural food stores in Ely brought in some duck eggs for our bears. Lucky walked away from it after smelling it, Tasha ate the egg, shell and all, and Holly cracked her duck egg, tasted it and walked away from it. Another example of our finicky bears.
Due to Lucky’s weight I’ve added dog biscuits to his diet. It’s a good way to put weight on him. He has been so obsessed with coupling with Holly that he has lost interest in eating.
From our website, information about Courtship and Mating:
Both males and females increase their movements during mating season. Females continue to forage during this time and generally can maintain their weight. However, males forage very little during mating season and lose approximately 20% of their fall weight during the 7-8 weeks of mating season.
Holly stopped foraging long enough to have a quick picture taken with her ears forward. (photo at top of page) It’s very hard to get a picture of her with her ears forward. That may be due to the heavy tags that infected her ears while she was in hibernation the winter she arrived.
Tasha treated us by posing for her picture. She was sitting in her tub for a while but decided to pose by sitting up. She held her toes and rocked back for just a few seconds but then did some stretches.
Holly has been busy digging again, this week she has a small area dug near the fence. She has broken some maple branches off and placed them near the entrance. We will have to intervene as it is dug close to the fence but she did a great job.
On Wednesday Lucky was in the 2nd den or the den I call, “Yoda den”. He had a few branches in his den too. What are they telling us? Stay tuned for more next week.
I always say thank you to all of you for helping our bears have the best diets possible. I feel I can’t say thank you enough. This week we received dried apricots and pineapples. Thank you! Our Amazon Wishlist remains active so if you’d like to check it out, please do so.
Thank you for all you do,
Sr, Bear Keeper, Sharon Herrell
