Too Cute Tuesday

These guys are looking like a couple of wet cats out of water. Catch mom showing them around the river banks when the brown bear live cam caught them on tape at the Katmai National Park. She has her ears on special alert as she shows them around their new home. 

“A mother bear with small cubs may first tend to avoid other bears for the safety of her litter. But as the cubs grow, a protective mother with enough size and attitude may assert dominance over an adult male with less fight… During the active season, the mother bear will show her cubs around their home range, continuing to nurse them, feed them fish she catches, and keeping a watchful eye on them… mothers begin forcing them into independence by the time they emerge from the den in their third summer at two and a half years old.” (Read more at the National Geographic Magazine.)

Brown Bears have more or less been on a steady rise at Brooks River. From under 20 bears in 1988 to over 70 this year, they continue to grow. And in no small way thanks to this matriarchal heroine. Nicknamed Milkshake for her coloring, “records from the past 20 years indicate that she is one of the most fertile and successful female bears that regularly uses the Brooks River area. In 2003, #236 was observed with four spring cubs, which is unusual for any sow. Remarkably, she returned to the Brooks River in 2010 with four more spring.”

Learn to identify the bears here and check them out live again soon at Explore.org.