Bear News – JUNE 19th 2026

This week’s news: How do bears communicate during courtship? This week’s bear weights and new tidbits about our bears.

Bear weights:

Lucky 416, Holly 262, Tasha 317.5, as you can see by last week’s weights our nutrition plan is really helping the bears.

How do bears communicate with each other during courtship?

Black bears use sounds, body language, and scent-marking to express their emotions of the moment. Amiable sounds such as grunts and tongue clicks are sounds used to communicate with males or females. Dr. Lynn L. Rogers, PhD.

https://bear.org/bear-facts/sociable-sounds/

Holly is currently in estrus and becomes anxious during this period. In female bears, if mating does not occur during the breeding season, pheromone production may increase as hormone levels remain elevated. As a result, scent-marking behavior can become more intense.

Bears have been observed straddling bushes, small trees, and even structures within their enclosure, releasing scent into the air. This scent can attract wild males, which may then visit the fence line.

Holly will mark the area; rubbing her back and the crown of her neck along the fence to ensure Tasha is aware of her presence. She also marks many of the large trees in the same manner. While Lucky is certainly her partner, he is a neutered male. It doesn’t stop the behavior but Holly tends to ramp up her hormones and pheromones and marks even more.

Another example is Holly and Lucky tongue-clicking as they approach each other. Lucky will gently nibble Holly’s neck, and the two often nuzzle and groom one another. While it may appear that love is in the air, the more accurate description is that Holly is in estrus and producing hormones that attract not only Lucky but also males outside the perimeter fence. In a week or so, Tasha is expected to enter estrus as well.

Bears also use marking poles or trees. This serves as a message board of a bear’s availability.

Black bears of all ages and both sexes rub their scent on marking trees, including wooden sign posts and utility poles, but the majority of this marking is by mature males during the mating season (May and June in Minnesota). They rub their shoulders, neck and crown and may also claw and bite the tree. Claw marks are usually superficial, incisor bites are deep enough that pieces of bark and wood are sometimes pulled out. Bites leave nearly horizontal marks that look like a dot and a dash where the upper and lower canine teeth came together. To learn more: https://bear.org/bear-facts/marking-trees-and-poles/

This past week we gave Tasha a taste test of food preferences, she had a choice of 4. We used a peanut butter ball, meal worms, dried blueberries and grapes. In order she ate grapes, blueberries, peanut butter and didn’t touch the meal worm.

Tasha is the only bear here at the center that eats cantaloupe, pineapple and oranges.

Lucky and Holly enjoyed the meal worms and cranberries they received. When Lucky was a cub, I kept dried meal worms in my jacket pocket. After he took his bottle he would go directly to my pocket and enjoy the meal worms.

A black bear’s diet in this area of Minnesota is 90% vegetation and 10% protein. Their protein needs are meant by insect larvae, insects, ant brood and pupae. We do give our bears a raw egg every morning. Just to note; Lucky’s egg can’t be broken, he has to do it himself or he will pout and walk away. As obedient caregivers, he is quickly given an unbroken egg.

I want to thank everyone for visiting our wishlist, we received so many wonderful enrichment foods. The bears not only love it but need it. Please don’t stop, the bears get two enrichments a day, plus we are using new and different enrichment tools. As we use them we will display a picture. I can’t thank-you enough but again,  I will continue asking for you to visit our wishlist. It’s my job. 🙂 https://bear.org/support-us/amazon-wishlist-2/

Thank-you for all you do,

Sharon Herrell, Sr. Bear Keeper