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.

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.

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.

Yellowstone day 6: Leaving Yellowstone

On the morning of our last day I had hoped to get to Mammoth early so that I could try to get some more pictures of the great horned owls there in the early sunlight. The sun was shining when we checked out of our hotel and headed back into the park for the last time this year. Unfortunately we ran into a bison jam in the pass between Madison and Norris and what would normally have been 30 minutes became 2 hours. After we were finally able to pass the bison herd we saw this male elk grazing on the side of the road and so we took a picture from the car.
By the time we made it to Mammoth the sky had clouded up. I took a couple pictures of the adult great horned owls, which I will include in my next post, and then we decided to take a quick trip out to Tower. We did not see a lot on the way to Tower, prolly because we did not have a lot of time before we had to be on the road back home, but while we sat eating our lunch in the Tower parking lot we noticed a group of people looking at the hill to the east. I grabbed the camera and scoured the hill and soon found Rosie and the cubs working their way towards the falls.
It was kind of a fitting farewell since we have seen Rosie every time that we have stayed at Yellowstone.
And then it was time to get back on the road back to real life. 8(

Yellowstone day 4: Who let the dogs out!

Day three in Yellowstone was pretty much a wash. It snowed most of the day. With very poor lighting it was difficult to take any pictures. So we decided to pack it in early that day and hope that Wednesday, day four, would be better. Wednesday morning the weather was better so we decided to head back to the Tower/Lamar Valley area. When we got close to tower we noticed a few cars parked along the road so we decided to stop and take a look. The reason for the traffic was a black bear in the woods a short way from the road.

After foraging in the woods for a bit the bear headed towards the road. I could tell from my experience around Yellowstone bears that the bear was looking to cross the road. Unfortunately there were no rangers around at the moment and there were quite a few people blocking his path trying to get pictures with their little cameras. I did not want to see the bear get in any trouble so I asked the people to make a path for the bear to cross and surprisingly people listened.
I got a couple of good close ups as the bear crossed. Fortunately I have a descent lens so I do not have to be right on top of the bear to get a good shot.
A few minutes later it became obvious why the bear was itching to cross the road. After the bear moved of into the back country we continued on to the Tower visitor area. When we were there we heard about a coyote den that was in a good location back the way that we had come. So we decided to head back and check it out. On the way we noticed a couple of cars parked in the exit to the Blacktail Plateau trail. We stopped and were rewarded with some more pictures of a red fox. The fox crossed the road and quickly disappeared on the other side so we continued back to where the coyote den was supposed to be. The location of the den was right off of the Forces of the Northern Range Self-guiding Trail. When we got there we saw that the parking lot was pretty full. We had noticed that there were many cars in the lot on our way out but we had thought that it was a tour group or something. The den was located off the back of the boardwalk which was currently filled with photographers, most with huge lenses. We had seen coyote dens on past Yellowstone trips but none had ever been so close and accessible. We spent most of the rest of the day shooting the very cute pups.

After several hours and a couple of 8gb cards the pups finally got tired and decided to sleep. We took their lead and headed back to our hotel.

Yellowstone Day 2: Pronghorn, bison and bears, oh my!

Day two, Monday, started out cloudy but cleared up a bit later in the afternoon. As with most days we headed north to the Tower and Lamar Valley area of the park. On our way into the Lamar Valley we spotted a lone pronghorn buck crossing a field. Pronghorn are the fastest mammals in North America with a sustained speed of about 30mph and a burst speed of up to 60mph.

On our way back out of Lamar Valley we ran into a bison jam. The bison jam is a bit different then a bear jam. A bear jam is when everyone stops to watch a bear that can be seen from roadside. A bison jam is when everyone stops because the bison have left the roadside and are now blocking the road. These can last a long time depending on where it happens and whether you are traveling in the same direction as the bison are. On our last morning we spent over 2 hours in a bison jam. This one we only had to stop for a few minutes and we took the opportunity to photo some of the new calves.

Over by Tower we spotted Rosie and her yearling cubs. Rosie is a well known bear that spends a lot of time by Tower Falls. We have photographed her with cubs 4 different years.

Last spring we were able to shoot her when these cubs where new born. Now they have been with her for over a year.

Rosie and the cubs where very playful.

This wrestling with mom and with each other is how the cubs learn. These lessons are very valuable as this summer Rosie will chase the cubs away and then they will be on their own.

Wrestling with cubs can make a bear hungry.

Cubs get hungry too.

Once the cubs are on their own Rosie will look for a mate so that next year we will hopefully be treated to another new set of cubs.

Day 1: We arrive in Yellowstone.

While this is a mostly birding website I enjoy all nature and wildlife and you can not go to Yellowstone and only take pictures of birds. So here are some of the mammals that we were able to photograph on our trip.

We left for Yellowstone on Saturday morning. That day we drove across Minnesota and North Dakota and stopped for the night in Glendive, MT. Sunday morning we continued on and arrived at Yellowstone around 2pm. We immediately set out across the upper loop to the Tower and Lamar Valley area. We decided to check out the Tower area first and as we passed the Roosevelt Junction we came across a red fox in a small meadow. We had seen a fox in the same area last year and we guessed that this was the same one. After a pit stop at the tower visitor center we headed out to Lamar Valley. As we crossed the Yellowstone River we saw a lot of cars stopped at the side of the road. Since we had seen big horn sheep in this area in past years we stopped to see what everyone was looking at. We were not disappointed. In the field next to the road was a large ram and his harem.

We got some good shots as they came close and then crossed the road. Lamar was pretty quiet so we headed back to Tower and got our first bear sighting of the trip.
By this time it was getting pretty late, my blood sugar was getting low and the hotel was still a couple hours away so we headed back across the park to West Yellowstone. On the way back we came across a large elk grazing and stopped for a couple of pictures. It is cool to see them when the antlers are covered in velvet. He still even had some of his winter coat.

Even though it was a good first day we were still a little disappointed. The past 2 times that we had come in the spring we had been fortunate and had spotted grizzly bears on the first day. This year we did not and unfortunately it was a portent that this year we would not be as extremely lucky as we had been in the past.