Maine Bear Cubs via MPBN

My friend Annie covers a lot of interesting stories for the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, but her recent story on Maine bear cubs is my favorite so far. Annie went out into the wilderness of Maine with State Wildlife Biologist Randy Cross and his crew to check on mama bears and her cubs. The monitoring program helps determine the health of Maine's black bear population and determine how many bears can be hunted during bear hunting season.

I didn't even know Maine had a bear hunting season. You learn something new everyday!

Every winter, pilots fly over the woods of northern and eastern Maine to detect radio-collared female adult black bears. The bears' den locations are given to State Wildlife Biologist Randy Cross, who heads into the woods to find them. Today's trip involves driving, snowmobiling, and snoweshoeing into the woods of Edinburg, about 50 miles north of Bangor.

Annie took a short video of the process of weighing the cubs and their zonked-out-on-tranquilizers mom. There were three female cubs who screamed bloody murder as they were taken from their den, but calmed down when held close to the biologists warm bodies. So cute!

Annie has a fun job. And she's good at it! Check out the video and story here.