MAMA BEAR HAS TWINS!

by Mick Webb Published in North Shore News June 25, 2006

As the incessant January rains drifted down through the lush canopy of the North Shore forests, the newborn bear cubs snuggled against their mother’s warm belly. Weighing less than a pound each, the brother and sister are blind, can barely crawl and have only a light covering of fur. At four years of age and weighing one hundred and seventy-six pounds, their mother is average for this her first litter.

Their home is a shallow scraping in the soft peaty earth beneath an old fallen cedar. The rotting bulk of the huge trunk provides good protection from the falling rain and a small degree of comfort is afforded by the floor’s layer of leaves and twigs that the mother has carefully dragged in and spread around. Although no warmer than the surrounding dripping forest, this is a typical winter den of the Black bear. Here the mother will nurse her helpless young charges through the wet chill of the North Shore winter until, with the advent of spring, mother and cubs will venture out into the awakening forest. Depending upon how much milk their mother has produced, the cubs will now weigh between five and ten pounds each.

Initially their forays for food will concentrate on colonies of ants and insect larvae licked from rotting tree stumps and fallen trees that their mother’s powerful claws will shred in her search for sustenance; eagerly, the cubs will join in this their first lesson in seeking food.

As spring progresses, so will their diet. Ants will gradually be supplemented with leaves, buds, flowers and sweet young plants and grasses. Berries will come later when in season. Bears prefer the tender juicy parts of plants as their stomachs, unlike deer and other grazing animals, have difficulty digesting the tough cellulose the plant develops as it ages.

As their mother chews on the succulent vegetation, the young cubs will intently smell her breath, thereby learning what is good and safe for them to eat. Unfamiliar plants will be held in their mouths, and rather than chew them, the cubs will gently “mouth” them. This action, coupled with a sensory organ in the roof of their mouth, also identifies what foods they may safely eat. This organ is named after the famed naturalist Ben Kilham who discovered it during his extensive rehabilitation work with orphaned bear cubs.

Like puppies and kittens, the cubs are now very playful and mischievous; this play and their interaction with each other and their mother is an important part of their social development. When danger threatens, the cubs will immediately rush to the nearest tree where their great strength and curved claws will rapidly take them to the leafy heights and safety. Dependent upon the threat level, their mother will either wait at the base of the tree or climb and join them until the danger passes.

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And so spring becomes summer, and gradually under their mother’s tuition the cubs learn to forage for food and react to the world around them. Once tiny and helpless, they are now boisterous and confident, and will resemble an overweight Springer Spaniel in size and weight. They will continue to suckle on their mother nearly to fall, the arrival of which will prompt her to prepare a den for the approaching winter. Here the three of them will shelter until their emergence in early spring.

Their mother will continue to care for and protect her cubs until June, when to their dismay, she will drive them away to survive on their own, her biological clock preparing her for yet another mating. And so the cycle of life continues.