black bear den visit

This trip was part of a black bear ecology class. We left the Ely campus and headed to the Marcelle area. It is North of Grand Rapids. We went with a black bear biologist who works for the DNR, her name was Karen. We parked along a gravel road and walked about a half mile along a logging road tracking the sound of the bear using a telemtry tracker. It looks like an old antenna that people had on their houses but smaller. The bear was only about 70 yards off of this logging road. This bear was a 2 year old cub. Only about 4% of bears actually reuse a den, this happened to be one of them.

Karen used a stick with a syringe in order to tranquilize the cub. The first picture of the bear was before we pulled her out of the den. We layed out a tarp and some foam padding for the cub so it was not right on the snow. The 2nd picture is of the radio collar that was on the cub, Karen had to replace this with a bigger collar. The 3rd is just Karen putting drops in the cubs eyes so they don’t get dried out, since the cub was sedated it would not blink its eyes.

The next set is of Karen taking blood samples from the femural artery, She took 3 viles full of blood. Next we had to weigh her so we held her up with rope onto a tree sapling and the cub weighed 79 pounds, Karen figured the bear weighed about 90-100 pounds when it went into the den this past fall.
The next set of pictures is of Karen taking some measurements of the cub and feeling the bones to see how much fat the cub had built up since last year when they found her. The picture with Karen laying down by its mouth, she is actually listening and counting the breathes the bear takes.
Then she had to get a core body temp, best place for that, right up the ol poop shute !! She whipped out the KY jelly and lubed up the thermometer and stuck it in. Then a picture with me by the bear. The amount of time we had the bear out of the den and doing the tests about 1 1/2 hours. It was a pretty cool experience, and thought I would share with you.

Crawler,
That is way too cool. Thanks for sharing.

Justin, Those picts are sweet. It sure would be cool be up close in person with a bear like that. Will you guys ever do anything with the wolfs. That would be another animal that would be cool to see up close.
Wallster ><((((>

here is the other pictures.

Great post. Sure brings back some memory’s, I got to help do that once. I sure hope that you get to help with a good walleye run or two. All I can say is it is a unbeleivable experience

Ron

I am not sure about doing anything with the wolves or not, but next Saturday we are going out and tracking some radio collared moose, so I will post pictures of that next weekend.

In in fish ecology class we are hoping to make it to the Pike river hatchery on Vermilion when they start their run. I have a buddy who went last spring and showed me pictures, all I got to say is WOW there are some big walleyes in that lake system. Last monday a group went out and watched the eelpout spawn in the creeks. I didn’t know about it and dont know anyone who went, would have been pretty cool to see that to

That is just amazing.

Years ago, I helped on the Pine River station, Whitefish Chain, lets just say that a female can through that would have smashed the state record. From what I heard she returned three more years after that and then disappeared.
These experiences are great ones and ones that will never be forget, ENJOY

Ron

You should make a trip into the Burntside river right now and see the burbot spawn…that is really cool, too!

I went to VCC, but don’t ask what year. It’s changed a little since I graduated. Still visit Ely every year and would love to retire there if mama would say it’s o.k.

Cool bear pics, thanks for reviving memories!

That is AWESOME!! Thanks for taking the time to share-I am a ways south, so very cool!! Can’t wait to see some more pics.

Yeah that is where the group went this past monday night to watch them. The area that they went was private property, the teacher that took them out is friends with the land owner, if I remember hearing correctly it is the owner of Piragis who’s land they went on. It would be pretty cool to see.