It was too early in the summer for blueberries in the meadow, so why was Black Bear hungrily meandering through Big Meadows?   With sunset approaching, he came into the meadow in search of food.  He sniffed the ground as he crisscrossed up a small hill, finding small insects and grubs to eat.

Two years ago, Black Bear had been a new cub watching his mother licking up tasty morsels in the same way.  Mother Bear had taught Black Bear cub to eat almost anything, and to eat often when nourishment was available.  But certain foods were only available at different times of the year.  The time for eating new grass shoots was over.  Now the grasses were tough and not palatable to a bear.  Insects and grubs had emerged, but it took a lot of them to satisfy a bear’s appetite. 

Bears need to build up body weight all through the spring, summer and fall to help them through the winter when food is scarce.  Bears spend those cold months in a deep sleep in a den; a deep sleep that is almost hibernation. 

At the end of the cub’s first summer, Mother Bear had taught him how to find a den where the bitterest of cold did not penetrate.  During the winter months in its den, a bear does not eat, living off its body fat, losing weight, and rarely awakening.  Its heart rate drops to less than ten beats per minute.  The breathing rate slows way down, and the metabolism rate drops, meaning it burns less energy than when awake.  That way it can live off the body weight it has accumulated during the warmer months.  Black Bear cub did not have to be taught how to go into that winter deep sleep.  That was known by instinct.

Last winter, Black Bear had left Mother Bear, or more accurately, had been sent on his way by Mother Bear.  He had found his own den. 

The winter months had gone by.  Black Bear had come out of his den in the early spring, looking thin and scrawny.  By the time the days of early summer were here, Black Bear had regained enough weight by eating every thing he could find, that he was no longer scrawny.  But he longed for a big meal, a meal of meat.  Meat would take less energy to find than many insects and grubs and would provide long lasting nourishment. 

He was looking in the meadow for small rodents and shrews that might not run away fast enough when Black Bear approached.  The best foods, like mice, usually ran away.  Insects and grubs were easier to catch, but did not provide much nourishment.  Black Bear was wandering through the meadow using his keen sense of smell and his not as keen eyesight to search for food.   Any food would do, but meat that would not escape is what Black Bear hoped most to find.

 

Part II

There were many white-tailed deer fawns in the meadow this year.  Some were already a month old and had discovered what their long slender legs could do … run, jump, and dodge.  Those older fawns would run full speed away from their mothers.  They would suddenly stop a hundred feet or so away, look around, and take off running the opposite direction.  They would run, bounding right past the mother doe so fast as to startle her to look up from her nearly constant browsing.

These older fawns might keep running for the sheer joy of running for half an hour or so.  Then they would return to the mother doe to nurse or just nuzzle.  As they tired, the month-old fawns would lay down to rest in the tall grass, where they would become nearly invisible to predators.

New Fawn was only a few days old.  She still had wobbly legs when she stood up.  Walking was a task that she still had to think about to keep from falling down.  Running was something older fawns and adult deer knew how to do.

Mother Doe spent very little time near New Fawn.  This is because New Fawn’s best protection was to be not noticed by predators.  New Fawn had bright white spots on her brown back so that she looked like mottled sunlight in the vegetation.  She knew how to hold perfectly still when hiding in the grass so that predators would not notice any movement.  The hunting instinct of predators to chase prey that runs away would not be triggered by New Fawn.  The older fawns were already agile enough to escape from most predators; but not New Fawn with wobbly legs.  For New Fawn, safety meant staying hidden.

Mother Doe came to check on New Fawn every now and then.  She had milk to provide nourishment that New Fawn was not ready to gain by browsing grass and leaves.  While Mother Doe was nearby, she cleaned New Fawn completely, helping New Fawn with yet another protection from predators.  New Fawn had no scent.  Predators that hunt by sense of smell could not detect New Fawn, because there was no odor to indicate that New Fawn was there.

After nursing, Mother Doe pushed New Fawn to the ground and finished cleaning off all odors.  She was telling New Fawn to stay hidden in the grass until her legs were stronger and running became natural.

 

Part III

Black Bear crossed over the small hill in the meadow and could see all of Big Meadows, nearly a mile long and a half-mile wide.  There were dozens of adult white-tailed deer in sight who saw the bear, but were not concerned.  They could outrun a bear.  Mother Doe walked slowly a little further from New Fawn, without looking back.  She did not want to give away New Fawn’s hidden location in the grass.

Black Bear knew he could not run down an adult deer and probably could not catch a month-old fawn.  But Black Bear was remembering the value of a meal of meat.  He kept wandering back and forth across the meadow.

A year ago, Black Bear, as a cub, had seen Mother Bear catch a groundhog, not by chasing it down before it could dive into its burrow, but by using her enormous strength to dig up the earth, revealing the tunnels, and leaving the groundhog no place to hide.  As Mother Bear fed on the groundhog, she made sure her cubs had to grab scraps away from her.  It might look as if Mother Bear was being selfish, but if that were so, the cubs would not have gotten any scraps.  The cubs were learning how to be aggressive to eat meat.   This is a skill they must have to survive: to hunt, to eat meat.

 

Part IV

Black Bear continued to wander about the meadow, sniffing the ground for any kind of food.  Suddenly, there was something right in front of his nose.  Black Bear lunged quickly, aggressively biting down on the brown creature with white spots.  There was a brief shriek followed by silence.

Black Bear carried the limp form in his jaws as he ran to a new location, just as, when a cub, he ran to keep a scrap of groundhog meat from his sister and Mother Bear.

At the brief instant of the sound made by the prey, every white-tailed doe within several hundred yards looked up in panic and began to run.  But they did not run away from the sound.  They ran toward where Black Bear was settling down with his back to a large tree trunk.  All those deer converged from many different directions to within fifty feet of the bear.   They stood sideways to the bear and twitched and moved and seemed to be tempting Black Bear to chase them and leave the small brown creature.

The tactic did not work.  Black Bear began to feed, only occasionally looking up at the adult deer standing so close.  After several minutes, all but one deer had gone away.  There was nothing more they could do.  A few minutes later, Mother Doe ran off. 

Black Bear took a half hour to finish eating.  He left nothing behind as evidence of what had happened.  He circled the tree trunk several times before deciding that he had not missed any morsel. 

Black Bear  

Click on the image to see it larger.

 

Then he settled down in the tall grass to rest.

As twilight came to the meadow, he was still there.  Black Bear had found his meal of meat and had eaten enough that he did not need to forage for some time.  With darkness, the deer began to drift into the wooded areas for the night. 

 

Part V

The sun rose in the meadow the next morning and Black Bear was gone.  White-tailed deer were coming back into the meadow again, browsing and tending to fawns.  In the course of this day, three new fawns would be born in the meadow. 

A bear would pass within 20 feet of one of these fawns and not see, smell or hear it.

 

                        Bob Kuhns