yellow yellow's cubs?

[gregpphoto]

Please dont let this thread to turn into a shouting match between Yellow Yellow's supporters and detractors..

I just read about her death this morning. Hurts, like losing a friend. I had been one of the first people to have a bear vault busted into in 2008. I was lucky enough this summer to work in the Dacks and on one hike, followed Yellow Yellow's prints, along with her cubs, for the whole stretch between Lake Colden and Flowed Lands. Magical.

My questions is, what happens to the three cubs she had birthed earlier this year? Will they make it through the winter? If not, then is Yellow Yellow's lineage coming to an end?

[WinterWarlock]

In another thread I had posted this article from the Daily Enterprise...it seems many cubs will be having problems this winter.

[gregpphoto]

Originally Posted by WinterWarlock

In another thread I had posted this article from the Daily Enterprise...it seems many cubs will be having problems this winter.

Very nice article, thanks for the share. I agree, it is a part of the natural world, sad as it might be to our civilized senses. But in this case, the cubs dont even have a mother anymore to look after them. I was hoping that the three cubs would grow up to be mirrors of their mother, aka terrorizing the out of town hikers hehe

[rdl]

If Yellow-Yellow was 20 years old, I'm guessing she has(had) many offspring roaming through the park...

[Alpine1]

Originally Posted by rdl

If Yellow-Yellow was 20 years old, I'm guessing she has(had) many offspring roaming through the park...

Every 2 yrs, all things being equal.
I'd guess her lineage will be around for a while

[Commissionpoint]

I'm not aware of any triplet births. Maybe it happens and I am not privy to such info, but it was my impression that they have singles, twins, or quads(very rarely). For a 20 year old sow to bring 3 to term is not something that is in my lexicon of understanding.

I think rather, it was twins, and being she was a small bear, and her cubs therefore had to be small espescially since there was more than one, the chances of survival this winter depends largely on the severity of the season, and even so doesn't look too good for them. I have heard of a lot of 25 pound cubs around here this fall. Thats really small for them to be going into winter.

Its seems that Y/Y's press coverage has transformed what really was an ordinary black bear sow with some environmental adaptations into an anthropomorphic legend. This really isn't honest to the facts of the situation, and if anyone here thinks the removal of one bear from the Adirondack population is going to somehow change how we hike or camp they are quite mistaken.

If we have a summer next year like we had this year, bear complaints in the backcountry will be abut the same as this year. If next summer the forage is back to normal or happens to be above normal and the bear confrontations lessen you can bet folks will overlook the food situation and say its because some guy killed Y/Y. That of course will be nothing more than correlation without causation.

[wellsley]

My questions is, what happens to the three cubs she had birthed earlier this year? Will they make it through the winter? If not, then is Yellow Yellow's lineage coming to an end?

If in fact they were born this year they would be small and around 30 to 75lbs. Females being normally smaller than Males. They would be susceptable to predation of larger Males. I think they would have odds against them for making it through the winter. If they were born last year they would be 100lbs or more and the mother would have likely encourage them to be more independant. I think there odds would be much greater for there survival.
As a life long hunter, fisherman and sportsman I would not knowingly shoot a sow that had cubs. If I saw a bear that was tagged I wouldn't hesitate to shoot it legally. There have been several famous bears in the dacks. Split ear, and choo choo. If I'm not mistaken someone in the Inlet area shot him illegally. Choo Choo or thats what I heard him called. Used to roam the high peaks area of panther gorge. He was so over weight and old he huffed and puffed so that he sounded like a choo choo train. Don't know what happened to him. That was 25, 30 years ago.

[Alpine1]

Mabel was another famous Old Forge bear 15+ years ago. She had triplets.

[ADKian]

Originally Posted by Commissionpoint

I'm not aware of any triplet births. Maybe it happens and I am not privy to such info, but it was my impression that they have singles, twins, or quads(very rarely). For a 20 year old sow to bring 3 to term is not something that is in my lexicon of understanding.

I think rather, it was twins, and being she was a small bear, and her cubs therefore had to be small espescially since there was more than one, the chances of survival this winter depends largely on the severity of the season, and even so doesn't look too good for them. I have heard of a lot of 25 pound cubs around here this fall. Thats really small for them to be going into winter.

Its seems that Y/Y's press coverage has transformed what really was an ordinary black bear sow with some environmental adaptations into an anthropomorphic legend. This really isn't honest to the facts of the situation, and if anyone here thinks the removal of one bear from the Adirondack population is going to somehow change how we hike or camp they are quite mistaken.

If we have a summer next year like we had this year, bear complaints in the backcountry will be abut the same as this year. If next summer the forage is back to normal or happens to be above normal and the bear confrontations lessen you can bet folks will overlook the food situation and say its because some guy killed Y/Y. That of course will be nothing more than correlation without causation.

Females usually first give birth in their 5th or 6th year, and then every 2nd or 3rd year after that. Black bears mate between June and early July, with cubs being born between January and early February. Generally, they have twins or triplets, but are known to have between 1 and 5 cubs. Usually only 1 cub is born the first winter that a female gives birth. The cubs are exceptionally small to the relative size of the mother. A mature sow can weigh up to 300 pounds, but cubs only weigh about 1/2 pound at birth.

[redhawk]

I'm thinking we should take up a collection ad get some bear feed. Then we could find the cubs and keep them fed during the winter . We might even take turns guarding them from male predators.We could videotape all this and soon the cubs will be so famous that the tourists will come flocking from all over the world to see them and maybe even get their pictures taken feeding or shaking hands with them. Heck, who knows, maybe they have the "bear canister" gene and will be self supporting from the pay they recieve for testing the bear-proofness of the various canisters out there. Then they could purchase and put a fence around their own den for some privacy or maybe even charge admission for the tourists to come and observe "black bears in the wild".

Who knows the tourism brought in by Yellow Yellows offspring could revive the economy of the whole Adirondack Park.

Any takers

[WinterWarlock]

Originally Posted by redhawk

I'm thinking we should take up a collection ad get some bear feed. Then we could find the cubs and keep them fed during the winter . We might even take turns guarding them from male predators.We could videotape all this and soon the cubs will be so famous that the tourists will come flocking from all over the world to see them and maybe even get their pictures taken feeding or shaking hands with them. Heck, who knows, maybe they have the "bear canister" gene and will be self supporting from the pay they recieve for testing the bear-proofness of the various canisters out there. Then they could purchase and put a fence around their own den for some privacy or maybe even charge admission for the tourists to come and observe "black bears in the wild".

Who knows the tourism brought in by Yellow Yellows offspring could revive the economy of the whole Adirondack Park.

Any takers

Sounds like the good old days in the Adirondacks...my wife grew up in Tupper Lake, and remembers the whole family driving to some landfill and seeing all the cars lined up feeding the bears.

[viewseeker]

Originally Posted by WinterWarlock

Sounds like the good old days in the Adirondacks...my wife grew up in Tupper Lake, and remembers the whole family driving to some landfill and seeing all the cars lined up feeding the bears.

i think every town had that to do on a saturday night, load up, lets go to the DUMP!!

[WinterWarlock]

Originally Posted by viewseeker

i think every town had that to do on a saturday night, load up, lets go to the DUMP!!

Might be - I didn't grow up anywhere near here, so didn't have that experience. Would have been interesting...wrong, but interesting.

[wellsley]

It was better than going to the movies. Sometimes watching some of the people react was the best show. lol

[Wldrns]

Originally Posted by viewseeker

i think every town had that to do on a saturday night, load up, lets go to the DUMP!!

I remember doing that, Old Forge and Long Lake were also good dumps to visit.

[wellsley]

The biggest bears I've ever seen were in the Indian lake dump. The most bears I've seen at one time was long lake. Also saw two bears there with tags in there ears.

[Justin]

...I remember going to see the bears at the Schroon Lake dump with my father when I was a little kid...I remember they used to tell the difference between bears from the bald spots on their ass...Funny what older folks find entertaining...

[UpstateIrish]

Originally Posted by Wldrns

I remember doing that, Old Forge and Long Lake were also good dumps to visit.

My family use to go to LL a lot and every Saturday night, we would head out to the dump to watch the bears. Now, I realize bears eating out of the dump is not good for them but man what memories of bears!

[Holdstrong]

It is interesting to think that landfill scenes like those mentioned here were common 30 or 40 years ago - yet today most people seem to assume habituated bears pose an imminent threat to people.

These "dump bear communities" were found all across rural America too. Some of the more well known ones were in Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. In those locations, communities fed large populations of bears (20+), sometimes for 40 years or more!

There is even a famous study done in Yosemite where the wild bear population was habituated to the point that tourists were taking photos next to them, luring them into their cars, and even having them lick honey off of their children! Crazy, right?

Yet as best as I can tell, from all of the studies and accounts available, none of these areas had problems with bear attacks or aggression beyond occasional bluff behavior (there were certainly no fatal attacks.)

So while it is absolutely good, especially for the bears, that we have shifted away from encouraging such blatant habituation... I still have to wonder what accounts for this new notion that if a bear does happen to become habituated, that it is dangerous to the point it needs to be killed. It certainly doesn't seem to be backed by any scientific evidence.

[Holdstrong]

Originally Posted by wellsley

My questions is, what happens to the three cubs she had birthed earlier this year? Will they make it through the winter? If not, then is Yellow Yellow's lineage coming to an end?

My understanding is that she has had several cubs over the years. So even if this year's do not make it, that should not signal the end to her lineage. I have to assume that over a 20 year stretch, her genes are present in the population.