Bears are the only mammals to give birth while hibernating. Grizzly bear cubs only weigh about 21-25 ounces when they are born, and are about the size of a small chipmunk. Born in January or Febuary, cubs will nurse and grow inside the den for the next four or five months. During their first summer grizzly bear cubs augment their milk diet with all the hundreds of food sources enjoyed by their mother. By tasting food sources cubs begin to memorize where and when different foods can be procured. This cub above was munching on sedge grass which can be up to 25% protein in early summer.Clams are one of the meat sources that grizzly cubs learn to enjoy at an early age. Clams are an important part of a coastal grizzly bear's diet during spring and summer, and often their only consistent meat source before the salmon arrives in mid to late summer. This grizzly mother (Patricia) was leaving behind scraps of clams for her cubs to dig up and find. Moving one hole behind their mother, the cubs gnawed off bits of meat still stuck to the clam shells and practiced the fine art of clam digging. Cubs learn about life by closely imitating their mothers.
Friday, July 30First year cubs, sometimes called "spring cubs" or "first summer cubs", were born the previous winter inside their mother's dens. These two cubs pictured above were photographed in July and are about six months old.
It's hard to believe that our vacation is coming to an end. Today was another early day because we wanted to get an early start before the crowds--so we left the cabin by 7:00am. We drove to Old Faithful and had a lovely drive with little traffic, just one short road work delay.Yellowstone is known for delays due to road work or animal sightings We were at Old Faithful by 9:00 am and didn't have to wait long for the geyser to blow--it went off at approx. 9:35am. It lasted a couple of minutes and gave off a lot of steam, but frankly didn't go that high. It was still exciting to see this natural phenomenon at Yellowstone. We visited the Old Faithful Inn which is gorgeous and has that "old time lodge" feel to it--the interior is beautiful. We decided to head into Bozeman which is where we will be spending our final night in Montana. The drive from West Yellowstone to Bozeman was beautiful! The excitement of our day was watching a bison walk down the middle of the road as we were driving to Old Faithful--we were very close to it, but safely in our car. It's another early wake up for us tomorrow--we need to be up by 5:15am --our flight leaves at 7:20am. It will be nice to be home again, but we're sad to leave this beautiful state. We will post more photos when we have a chance.
grizzly bear cub
grizzly bear cub
grizzly bear cub
grizzly bear cub
grizzly bear cub
grizzly bear cub
grizzly bear cub