Bear News – JULY 2025
Mating season has ended… or has it?
Thank you for all your votes and for your help in celebrating the bears ½ birthday fundraiser! Each bear got the following piñata: Lucky- Strawberry. Holly – Ice Cream. Tasha- Flower. The total donations came in at $695.00. Thank you to all who voted and donated!
The bear’s weights are staying very consistent. Lucky is 406, Holly is 268, Tasha is 333. It’s been an absolute delight to see the bears interacting with each other. Tasha has chased Holly, Holly is playing or wrestling with Tasha. Lucky has been playing with Holly. The big change has been with the mating courtship at the North American Bear Center. Lucky has always pursued Holly. This year Holly initiated the courtship with Lucky. At first he was reluctant, believe it or not but then succumbed to her beauty or rather her insistence. He mated with her on June 19th.
Around the second week of June; Lucky did something we had not seen before. He began pursuing Tasha. He followed her scent, then stomp walked, straddling the brush and hanging out by her den while she was in. He seemed to go between both of them. His attention was more towards Tasha than Holly. During the morning while interns looked for them they often saw all three bears resting within 10 feet or so of each other creating a triangle configuration.
The vocalizations we have been hearing have been a little different this year between the bears. Tasha has demonstrated interest in Lucky for the past seven years. He has always responded with bluster. Lately he has been responding to her with tongue clicks. We will have to see how this plays out. Mr. Romeo now may have two Juliet’s!
In other action, the two females have been playing together as I said in the beginning. Tasha even did a somersault on Saturday. She played in the overflow pond splayed out to cool her body. As Holly approached from the rock den, Tasha slowly moved but nothing happened. Even as I write this Lucky and Holly are sitting on the mound watching Tasha as Tasha is watching them. I have one of the greatest jobs ever created for a person.
Some of the ground fruits are producing an excellent crop this year. The woodland strawberries, red raspberries, bunch berry, serviceberry, sarsaparilla and red-osier dogwood all poised to have bountiful yields. So far it looks to be a good food year for our ambassador bears and the wild bears. As you look around the pond you might notice how many serviceberry (also called juneberry) trees there are. These trees are loaded with the sweet tasting berries that our bears (and staff) love. Just outside the gates there are pin cherry trees and chokecherry trees again loaded with fruit. The interns will pick them as soon as the fruit is ripe and give them to the bears. If it is given as a branch it is called browse. Dr. Rogers’ wife Donna and her grandchildren often cut small branches trimmed from her trees to give them to the bears. The interns in early summer often cut willow and aspen browse and give the fresh young leaves to the bears.
We are still in need of dried fruit and nut donations from our Amazon wishlist, please check our needs out as you are able.
Thank you for all you do for our bears!
-Sharon Herrell, Senior Bear Keeper
Links –
https://bear.org/bear-facts/courtship-and-mating/
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