The Fall Life of Bears: Foraging, fishing, and family 3

3. Family

[My last grizzly post.]

In the fall, one can see this year’s cubs, now around seven months old. At Knights Inlet, from a stand, we watched one mother and this spring’s cub cross the river:

The mother climbed on a log, and the cub rather tentatively followed her:

Changing her mind, the mother walked along the log:

and jumped off:

The cub was not at all sure about this:

but eventually he followed, scrambling to catch her up.

The guides told us that he was smaller than he should be at this time of year, so let’s hope he makes it through the winter.

The Spirit Bear Lodge area is also packed with grizzlies, largely on the mainland. If the grizzlies were to cross to the spirit bear islands they would be likely to outcompete them, so this is a case of separation being desirable. There are no viewing stands here, so we took the zodiac up a shallow river, and found this mother grizzly with two of this year’s cubs, moving along the river’s margin. The shore was steep, rocky, and thickly vegetated, so she was swimming (acting as a barrier between us and her cubs), but the cubs were doing a bit of each. The bears let zodiacs get relatively close; people on foot are much more threatening to them.

When they are wet they look like drowned rats,

but after a good shake their coiffures improve .

The cubs played on fallen logs:

And then they all found a shingle bank where they dug for molluscs:

until they strolled off across the strand:

These are the freshest grizzly tracks I have ever seen, or hope to see.

And with my cap, for scale:

Cubs usually leave their mother by the age of three, but no-one told Fauna, below. She apparently did leave around that age, but just like a human boomerang kid, she reappeared at her mother Flora’s side a few months later.

And Flora didn’t have the heart to chase her away. However, once she has another litter she will not tolerate Fauna any longer.

PS I recommend this website specifically about the grizzlies of British Columbia.

The passage below is taken from there:

Click to access grizzly_in_bc.pdf

“…one to four hairless cubs weighing only about 0.5 kg (1 lb.) are born in
the den in January or February. The mother nurses her cubs in the den until they all come out in late April or May.

Grizzly cubs usually stay with their mother and den with her for at least two years. During that time they are fiercely protected and learn where to find food as the seasons change and when, where and how to dig a winter den. Grizzly cubs also play a great deal. The period of dependence on the mother is relatively long compared to other mammals. This prepares the cubs for an independent life. In June of the third year, adult females usually breed again, and they chase the cubs, now quite large, off to become self-sufficient. … Sow Grizzly Bears don’t produce their first litter until they are about five or six years old or even older. Delayed sexual maturity, together with a three-or- more-year interval between litters, results in a low reproductive rate. The maximum life span of Grizzly Bears in the wild is more than 30 years. “