Find The Berries - You'll Find The Bears !

 

The small bear on the cover picture is a sow that had yearlings in tow late Spring. She is one of the three bears foraging on blueberries in a swamp.

 

Last year, the highbush blueberries had a banner crop in the swamps I was camera trapping. This year, the crop is more uneven: several swamps have sparse berries, while one swamp is loaded. Three different bears have found that site, as shown by broken blueberry branches and numerous scat piles throughout the swamp.

Highbush Blueberries

Bush Damaged From Bear 

There  is still some light scent marking going on with several bears at scent marking trees. One location that has been slow all year had three new bears pass by the marking tree in the last two weeks. Maybe just a coincidence.

I was excited to capture trail-camera video of a third sow with four cubs. So far this year, that makes three sows with four cubs each. The first sow with cubs was a considerable distance from the last two sows. The physical characteristics of the second and third sows made them easy to distinguish: one had a large body and a very dark muzzle, while the other had a much smaller frame and a brown muzzle.

Bear Scat w/ Blueberry Seeds Visisble

I have been moving trail cameras into blueberry swamps in hopes of capturing more videos of new bears.

Jim