Yearlings at Vince Shute

Black bear cubs are born in January while the mother is in hibernation. The cubs are born blind, without fur and weigh less then a pound. Even though the mother is in hibernation she is awake enough to take care of the helpless cubs. Here in Minnesota the temps in January can fall well below zero and since most dens provide little protection from the cold it is up to the mother bear to keep the cubs warm, dry and fed. While in the den with her cubs the mothers body temp runs around 95 to 98 degrees, only a few degrees less then during the summer. She uses her body heat to keep the cubs warm. She will stand over them like a big furry blanket and even breath her warm breath on them if necessary. If water leaks into the den she will lick the cubs dry.

For the first month of their lives the cubs can not even crawl. They spend all of their time sleeping and suckling the extremely fat rich milk from their mother. By 4 to 6 weeks they have grown to about 3 to 4 pounds. They have also begun to crawl and have about an inch think layer of fur. They still rely on their mother for food and warmth but are now able to thermo-regulate to some extent. This is helpful to the mother who has been burning a third to over a half pound of stored fat each day in order to keep her family warm and fed. By April or May, depending on the weather, the bears will emerge from the den.

The cubs now weigh around 4 to 10 pounds. Their legs have grown long enough for them to walk and they follow mom, who by this time needs to get some food for herself. At the beginning of summer the young cubs teeth grow in and they begin to eat solid foods, such as ant larvae, vegetation and berries. The mother bear will continue to feed the cubs through out the summer however as the cubs eat more solid food their dependency on mom's milk lessens.

In the fall the cubs will hibernate with their mother. They will snuggle together to help keep themselves warm, and sleep until spring. They leave the den in April or May again. The cubs will stay with their mother for a month or two after leaving the den. At that point the mother will chase the yearling cubs away. It is time for them to go out on their own and time for mom to look to mate. All of these pictures are of yearlings. We spotted 4 or 5 yearlings at the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary. Since it was the beginning of July these bears had probably recently been sent off on their own and you could tell that they were a bit nervous, especially with the larger bears around.


These are the end of my bear pics from our trip to Vince Shute.

Vince Shute Bears

Bears are highly evolved, intelligent animals. They are the most intelligent, non-human, animals native to North America. Some believe that their intelligence is on par with that of the great apes or at the level of a 3 year old human child. Like humans, bears are individuals, with each bear having its own unique personality. They often develop relationships or even friendships with other bears. Bears will sometimes share resources or use tools to improve their lives.

At the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary it is easy to see their intelligence . Like this cub for instance. When other bears are around mothers will usually send their cubs up trees for their own safety, while the other cubs where trying to get comfortable in the fork of a couple of branches this smart little bear found himself a nice comfy spot to sit. He is sitting on the top of a bird house that was mounted on one of the trees.



Eventually when it was safe he came down to taste some of the seeds and fruits left by the strange humans, but being a smart little bear he kept close to mom.

Birding at the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary

The Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary is the best place to see black bears in Minnesota but it is also a pretty good place to do some birding, even though you have to do it all from the bear viewing platform. While we were there photographing the bears we did take time out to snap a few pics of some of the birds that we saw.
Eastern phoebe are pretty common through out Minnesota. The Land of 10,000 Lakes is great habitat for millions of bugs, which makes it great habitat for eastern phoebe and other flycatchers
Like many species of birds, the female goldfinch is not nearly as bright or colorful as her male counter part. This usually indicates that it is the female of the species that gets the privilege of selecting the mate. The males are all dolled up with their bright shiny feathers because they need to work hard to attract a good mate.
When I first spotted this bird I was not too excited because I thought that it was a house finch, which are fairly common through out most of the US all year long, but when I took a closer look I noticed that it has no streaks on its flanks. I believe that it is actually a purple finch, which we usually see only during the winter when they migrate south from Canada. Although Orr, MN is not all that far from the Canadian border.
The most exciting bird to watch that night was this yellow-bellied sapsucker. In southern Minnesota we usually only see sapsuckers during migration, but some birds do stop and spend their summer in northern Minnesota. The yellow-bellied sapsucker is the only member of the woodpecker family in the eastern half of North America that is completely migratory. They spend their summers in Canada and the Northern Great Lakes area and winter in the southeastern US, Mexico and Central America.
One of the ways that sapsuckers eat sap from trees is illustrated in the picture above. They will make shallow rectangular holes, in the tree, from which they lick up sap with their tongue, if you look carefully at the picture above you can see the birds tongue. These holes must be maintained regularly to maintain the flow of sap. The other way that sapsuckers extract sap is by creating a small deep hole in which it places its bill and probes for sap with its tongue.

More Bear Cubs at Vince Shute

We saw more then one mom with cubs at the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary. The cubs spent much of their time in the trees, where they are a bit safer because they can climb out on small branches where larger bears can not go.




This was one of three cubs that belonged to a mother that was feeding near the deck in the sanctuary. She was bigger and seemed more confident then the other mother bear that stayed at the edge with her cubs. I am guessing that she was an older more experienced mother.

Bear Cubs at the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary

One of the most exciting things to see at the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary is when mother bears bring in their new cubs. In past years Michelle and I have visited at the beginning of the season, near to Memorial Day, or at the end of the season, Labor Day weekend. This year was the first year that we went pretty much in the middle, July 4th weekend, and it certainly payed off.

When we have gone early in the season the mothers have typically treed their young cubs back in the woods and come in to eat on their own. When we have come later in the season we have seen more of the cubs come in to feed with their mothers but by that time they have already grown quite a bit. By going in the middle of the summer this year we got to see a good selection of cubs who were all still fairly small and very cute.

At one point during the evening this mother with her three cubs came to the outskirts of the clearing. Mom was cautious and stayed at the edge of the meadow far from the other bears. While mom was trying to decide whether or not it would be safe to move in closer the cubs would run around her playing and peering curiously at this strange place.

Eventually mom decided against coming in to eat so she turned around and lead her brood back into the woods.

A trip to Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary.

On the Fourth of July weekend Michelle and I decided to go on a short road trip since we had and extra day off. We decided to head north up the the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary near Orr, MN. I wanted to go up on the fourth, which was a Friday, unfortunately the only hotel in Orr was all booked up for that night. So we went up on Saturday instead. We left Saturday morning and headed to Duluth, MN first. In Duluth there was not much time for me to do any birding. Michelle wanted to stop at the zoo, since we had not visited it in a few years, and then we ate lunch at our favorite restaurant in Duluth, Black Woods, by the time we had finished all of that, plus the couple of hours it took to drive to Duluth, it was time to head out to Orr so that we would get there early enough to get some pics before we lost the sun. We arrived at the sanctuary shortly before 5:00pm, which is when it opens, and there was already a line up of cars waiting. Fortunately it did not take us to long to get parked, into a bus and on our way down to the sanctuary.

The Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary is the home base for the American Bear Association. During the summer it is also a rest stop and feeding grounds for numerous black bears. The Sanctuary began as a logging camp back in the 1940s. Vince Shute, and his loggers, would frequently have problems with bears breaking into their buildings looking for food. Like most people who lived in the north woods they resolved the problem by shooting the bears but this did not sit well with Vince. In the early 1950s, after a decade of killing, Vince decided to try something different. He knew that the bears were breaking in because they were hungry, and not out of malice, so he decided to start putting food for the bears out in a meadow away from his camp. His idea worked, the bears began to eat the free food and quit breaking into the camps buildings. At first this was just a means for the loggers to coexist with the bears but as time went on Vince fell in love with the bears who visited each summer.

Even after he retired from the logging business Vince continued to feed his bears until 1993. At 80 years old the bear man, as he was often referred to by the locals, was worried what would happen to his friends when he was gone, so he approached some human friends, who shared his love of the bears, and in 1995 they started the American Bear Association. Vince donated his land to the association and it was transformed into the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary.

In 2000 Vince Shute passed on but his love of the bears still lives on in the ABA who continue to feed the bears each summer in the same meadow that Vince began in over 50 years before.Even though they discourage the idea of feeding bears and any other wild animal the association knows that this is a special case, where people can come to view wild bears in a situation that is safe for both people and bears. Here is the first set of pictures that I took of the bears.
When we arrived down at the deck the first bear that we saw was this young bear who had enjoyed a fine feast of nuts and berries and had now sacked out on the old entrance to the deck.
He did not seem to mind all of the people on the deck peering over the railing to watch him as he took a nap. He just slept there for a while, occasionally sitting up to take a cautious glance around, then laying his head back to to continue his rest.
As the evening picked up many bears would roll in eat their fill and then head back out.
Many of the larger bears had been visiting this location each summer for many years and so they were recognised by some of the volunteers who had also spent many of their summers there.
One of the bears that the volunteers recognized had only 3 paws. According to the volunteers, this bear was missing its paw back when it first visited as a yearling. They were not sure how the bear had lost the paw or how long he would live with the injury, they do not give any medical attention to the bears. That was back in 1999 and each year since he has come back.
Despite the fact that there were quite a few large bears around there was no quarrelling or fighting between them. The smaller bears did make sure to give the larger bears lots of space but with plenty of food around all of the bears seemed not to mind their fellow bears or the curious humans on the deck.

Birding at Vince Shute

While watching the bears up at the Vince Shute Bear Sanctuary we also got a chance to do a little birding. There were quite a few bids who where taking advantage of the food that was put out for the bears. The blue jays were the biggest culprits.
There were about a dozen blue jays in the area who would sneak in and share in the bears meal.Besides the blue jays there were also a lot of goldfinch and a couple white-breasted nuthatch that were getting in on the action. There were also some birds who were around but did not care about bear food. Like ruby-throated humming birds and this sapsucker.I believe this is a juvenile yellow-bellied sapsucker but it is hard to tell because it is missing the dark band that outlines the red on the chin.

Trip to Vince Shute Bear Sanctuary

With the slow days of summer taking it's tole on my birding enthusiasm, and my old tennis shoes beginning to wear through from hiking my usual haunts only to find the usual suspects, I decided it was time to go out and shoot some bigger game. So Michelle and I headed up to Orr, MN over the holiday weekend to photograph bears at the Vince Shute Bear Sanctuary.

Vince Shute was a successful logger in the mid 1900s. He ran into problems with black bears who would frequently raid his logging camps searching for food. He and his men did what most people did with bears that caused problems back then, they shot them. But Vince conscience got the better of him and after a decade of killing the bears he tried something different. He began to put food for the bears out in a field. This allowed the bears and loggers to live in harmony. The bears could find food with out destroying the logging camp and the loggers no longer would shoot them.

Vince continued to feed the bears even after he retired from logging. The bears, who were once a nuisance, were now his friends and the purpose of his life. People began to hear stories about Vince, the bear man, and would come to witness these marvelous creatures. In the early 90s Vince helped to establish the American Bear Association and donated his land to them. He hoped that they would continue his legacy after he was gone.

Vince passed away in 2000, the summer that we first visited the sanctuary. We never met him but we have visited the sanctuary, and watched it grow, many times over the past 7 years. This was the first time that we went this late in the year. The sanctuary is open Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day so this was the closing weekend. We left early Saturday morning. We planned to stop in Duluth and do a bit of birding and then eat a late lunch before heading off to Orr, since the sanctuary does not open until 5pm.

We arrived right at opening but their was already a long line of cars in front of us and we did not make the first set of buses. When we finally arrived at the deck there were about a dozen bears in the meadow feeding. It was difficult to take pictures since the sun was beginning to set behind some clouds that had rolled in, making it somewhat dark, and tripods are not allowed due to the space limitations on the deck. I tried to use the railings as much as possible but there were a lot of people visiting which made it difficult to get to the rail over by where the bears were located. Her are some shots that I did get.

Although there were a lot of visitors to the sanctuary that night, at least 10 bus loads of people were shuttled in, not many of them were bears. According to the volunteers we only saw about half as many bears as we would on the same day in past years. They attributed this to the weather which was up in the 80s which is unseasonably warm for northern Minnesota in September.