MARCH 1, 2000

THE ANNUAL BEAR POPULATION EXPLOSION

This annual event starts in late January but the final tally is not known until springtime. These tiny creatures are about ten inches long and weigh only eight ounces; approximately 1\600 of their mothers weight. Why do black bears have such tiny babies? That is one of Nature's many riddles that no one has yet answered.
Baby bears are born with their eyes tightly closed, like kittens. They open in 35 days. Cubs have little bobbed tails but big feet with short curving claws. As they grow older these powerful feet will enable them to walk softly through the forests or scoop fish from a stream. The sturdy claws will help them easily climb trees and tear apart logs and stumps to find food.
Within one week the cubs double in size and weight. They fully digest the warm, rich bear milk and no evidence of body waste is ever found inside a den. It will be April or May before we see these newborn and can calculate our new population.

May man's expanding civilization never crowd this native American from his natural haunts. May we always preserve our wilderness and deep woods, sheltering the black bear and all his wildlife neighbors. The fun-loving cubs, the patient and devoted mothers, the black bear males who roam the forests like majestic shadows; these are part of our American heritage. May they always live wild and free in our American wilderness, sharing with man the peace and beauty of our forests, lakes and streams.

MISSION The purpose of this paper is to report area news, and nothing but the news so help me God, unless I feel like doing something else, which I can do whether you like it or not because it is my paper. You can read it or not, just as you please. But remember, if you don't read an issue you don't know what your missing. DID SOMEBODY SAY BEARTOWN ************ Sign Bruin DeBear's Guestbook View Bruin DeBear's Guestbook				STAFF EDITOR...Claude Dern TYPESETTER...Claude Dern JANITOR...Claude Dern CUB REPORTERS Ursus Americanus Bruin DeBear Perhaps Yourself Bruin's Den
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