It is the season for bear issues. The berries are ripe and their is a lot of food up top. The mama bears have kicked their cubs to the curb and the little ones are trying to make it on their own. They just have to learn that there is a big park out there and they can not stay at LeConte. We have had a few bear sightings over the past week. The park biologists hiked up to find these bears and let them know they need to move on. As soon as Rick Varner, park biologist, got to the top, the bear came walking thru camp. It did not take long for Rick to dart the little guy and start his work up on him.
Rick is getting ready to work up the bear so they have documentation on bear #532.
The bear is getting ear tags so he can be identified if he decides to come into camp again.
This bear has some big paws for a two year old.
He is about to get a tattoo in his mouth. This will have be another way to identify him if he becomes a problem bear and his ear tags come out.
After the biologists are done working him over, they wake the bear up. They then to proceed to yell at the bear and scare it out of camp. Rick says the experience is like a bad night on the town. The bear will wake up with a bad hang over, a tattoo, a pulled tooth, an earring, and some crazy memories of those two legged creatures. Hopefully, this will be enough to make him scared of people and buildings and stay away. We want him to stay a wild bear, which in return will save his life.
RSS Feed
