Yearling black bear cubs -- so cute, but do not feed them!
By Contributor
By Sue Wrigley and Nancy Bulman
Late June to early July is an important time for bears. It’s mating season. A cub stays with its mother for 16-17 months, until it is time for her to mate again. Male bears looking to mate are a danger to cubs, so at this time of year mother bears tell their yearling cubs to leave, in no uncertain terms. She may send them up a tree, as she does when they are being threatened, but then leave and not come back. Eventually, hunger drives the yearlings down to look for food on their own.
This is when you might see confused and forlorn-looking cubs in town as they try to find their own way in the world. Differentiating between a cub-of-the-year (“coy”) and a “yearling” can be tough. A 16–17-month-old yearling is about the size of a medium dog, ranging in size from 40 to 90 lbs. Their ears look big at this age and they won’t be bawling for their mom. They will also be losing their winter coat and may look thin and scraggly.
Cubs smell the mother bear’s breath to learn the scent of different edible foods. If the mother has eaten garbage, the cubs will also learn that scent. The mum is simply teaching what she knows, and if she has been taught that garbage is an easy meal, she will pass that knowledge on. Every year bears are killed because they come into too close contact with humans while looking for food, causing a perceived conflict situation.
These young bears are very cute and your instinct may be to feed them; they can also not be fearful of humans yet, and come right up to you. Please don’t feed them! This is when it is extremely important for us to discourage yearlings from trying to find easy human-sourced foods. This cycle of mother bears passing on the habit of looking for easy human-sourced food must be broken. The yearling’s life may depend upon learning to stay away from human areas.
The city and the conservation office receive many calls during June / July from concerned people about these ‘poor little bears’. The advice is to leave them alone. Scare them away from your garden, garbage, compost or pet food dish, as they must find food in the wild to stay wild. They must also find a territory of their own and ultimately make a family of their own. We can help them do that by scaring them away from town and out into the wild where they belong.
This article was written by volunteers of the Rossland Bear Smart Task Force. Find our web page on the Rossland Sustainability site: https://rosslandsustainability.com and tap the Bear Task link.
