Up early and adam as we started our day on one fine Wednesday Morning. As we are checking campsites to see who is staying and who is leaving, we started in our B loop; which is the tent area. One of our tenters comes up to us and said he just seen a cub bear walking on the burm trail. We asked us to show us where the cub at.
As I walked up on the burm, sure enough there was a cub walking on the trail as if nothing was amidst. He did look back once to see if anyone was following me, and then just kept on going.
As volunteer and workers of the state park our first protocol was to get a hold of a park ranger. Being it was very early in the morning and no park rangers were on as of yet, but maintenance was, we approached the maintenance guy and then he made the necessary phone calls while we went back to track the direction the cub was going.
the cub got chased up a tree at one point by barking dogs, came back down, and once again headed towards our B loop; which was still loaded with a group of overnight campers with lots of young kids. Not wanting to have the kids chasing the baby, we tried our best to divert the cub away from that area, but he would have no part of it. He looked at us as if he was in charge, and actually-he was!
Although the pics are blurred, they are my first pics of a baby cub!
He’s running away from us and right into the paths of lots of kids!!
We eventually lost track of him in the tall grass brush, so we had no clue as to where he actually was. Then another one of our campers informed us that there was not just one cub, but two! They had played hours prior to the chase in front of his camper.
The next question that everyone had…if we have cubs in the park, where is mama? That kept rangers and us on edge through out the day. The rangers had to contact the Dept. of Wildlife. He came out and talked with us about the cub. At first he thought it was last year born and wasn’t an actual cub-until he looked at my picture that I manage to get.
As the day turned to night, we advised campers that there are bears in the area and to keep their site clean of food. As we went around later that night checking on the park, and talking with campers, one lady came up and said that there is a bear on the other side of the river pacing back and forth. We later learned that it was mama to the cubs. All of tenters were awaken through out the night with mama crying for her babes.
Almost of a week later and other than finding bear scat back near the water treatment area, there has been no more sighting of mama or the cubs. We hope that somehow they have been re-united and have gone back to their homeland, away from the campground.
So what happen to separate mama from cubs? We are all thinking that somehow upstream the babes fell into the river, after maybe a bank collapse from the raging rushing water. They swam went downstream, ending up on the opposite side of the bank and landing near us. Now if somehow we can get them to continue down river for another 2 miles, then maybe cubs could cross over at the Cameo bridge and get re-united with their mama. Just so long mama doesn’t cross over to our side in the meantime.
By the looks of the scat, the cubs appear to be eating some vegetation, but they are a little on the skinny side-they need their mama back for proper nutrition.
As I walked up on the burm, sure enough there was a cub walking on the trail as if nothing was amidst. He did look back once to see if anyone was following me, and then just kept on going.
As volunteer and workers of the state park our first protocol was to get a hold of a park ranger. Being it was very early in the morning and no park rangers were on as of yet, but maintenance was, we approached the maintenance guy and then he made the necessary phone calls while we went back to track the direction the cub was going.
the cub got chased up a tree at one point by barking dogs, came back down, and once again headed towards our B loop; which was still loaded with a group of overnight campers with lots of young kids. Not wanting to have the kids chasing the baby, we tried our best to divert the cub away from that area, but he would have no part of it. He looked at us as if he was in charge, and actually-he was!
Although the pics are blurred, they are my first pics of a baby cub!
He’s running away from us and right into the paths of lots of kids!!We eventually lost track of him in the tall grass brush, so we had no clue as to where he actually was. Then another one of our campers informed us that there was not just one cub, but two! They had played hours prior to the chase in front of his camper.
The next question that everyone had…if we have cubs in the park, where is mama? That kept rangers and us on edge through out the day. The rangers had to contact the Dept. of Wildlife. He came out and talked with us about the cub. At first he thought it was last year born and wasn’t an actual cub-until he looked at my picture that I manage to get.
As the day turned to night, we advised campers that there are bears in the area and to keep their site clean of food. As we went around later that night checking on the park, and talking with campers, one lady came up and said that there is a bear on the other side of the river pacing back and forth. We later learned that it was mama to the cubs. All of tenters were awaken through out the night with mama crying for her babes.
Almost of a week later and other than finding bear scat back near the water treatment area, there has been no more sighting of mama or the cubs. We hope that somehow they have been re-united and have gone back to their homeland, away from the campground.
So what happen to separate mama from cubs? We are all thinking that somehow upstream the babes fell into the river, after maybe a bank collapse from the raging rushing water. They swam went downstream, ending up on the opposite side of the bank and landing near us. Now if somehow we can get them to continue down river for another 2 miles, then maybe cubs could cross over at the Cameo bridge and get re-united with their mama. Just so long mama doesn’t cross over to our side in the meantime.
By the looks of the scat, the cubs appear to be eating some vegetation, but they are a little on the skinny side-they need their mama back for proper nutrition.
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