From: bear.org . ...To our surprise, with Den Cams, we found that bears are far more active in their dens than we had ever thought by looking at them with us present or reading the literature based on the same kinds of observations. They don’t do what they do when someone is standing there watching. What we thought was a time of energy conservation turned out to be a time of play, bonding behavior (mutual tongue-licking), removing foot pads, comfort suckling by yearlings daily, frequently rearranging bedding, licking icicles, eating snow, preparing dens for births, 20+ hours of labor, keen attentiveness to cubs and their cries, responding to mice and squirrels that share their dens, eating spiders that might winter in their fur, responding to large mammals that approach the dens, backing out of den entrances to urinate and defecate near the entrances (or off to the side of their beds in large dens), etc. There are videos illustrating the above among the over 600 videos at youtube/user/bearstudy/videos. In spring, mothers and cubs begin playing and resting in their den entrances or venturing outside. In a year of early melt, a mother and yearlings left on March 24. In a year of delayed melt, a mother and cubs left on April 23. A mother with especially small cubs left in early May in one of our studies long ago. If there are big refuge trees near a den, the first move might be to a big tree with the kind of rough strong bark that cubs can safely climb. Mothers recognize these trees. If such trees are farther from dens, bears will lead their cubs there when a crust develops on the snow or the snow melts. From: bear.org
Posted on: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:45:53 +0000
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