black bears..oh my

Yes please may we have some black bears!!! I just love bears. I find them wonderful and amazing creatures. I've had one right across the street from my house. I gotta say I'm glad he wasn't hungry for horse that night. My horse was going crazy one night, this was years ago when my husband and I were first married, and I was NOT a country girl at that time and creepers the things that went bump in the night out here! Yikes. Gives a girl chills! Not any more though. I love the back roads, no lines in the roads, the pot hole you swerve to miss and cringe when you hit a new one, no street lights, and the quietness you get in the country and the sounds of the night critters. Ah I love it, and am anxiously waiting for spring peepers...Anyways the bear across the street wanted my neighbors corn, not my beloved Abby.
But that is not what this post is about, that was a um, well, a little rabbit trail for you reading pleasure, and for you to get to know me a little better...
Any who..
My husband, son and father in law got to go on a once in a life time trip with the Boy Scouts. Gotta say I really wish I could have gone, but couldn't. Only 12 people were allowed on this trip, and I didn't make the cut. Hehehe. Now you are probably wondering what it was well it was this...

They were offered to go to a bear den with the biologist!! Every year they (biologists) go out and check on the bears. They are tracking some of them to see how the bear population is doing overall. They tranquilize them, weigh them, change the batteries in their tracking device, and check the overall health and well being of the bears. One of the biologists has been doing this for 31 years. And the bear den they went to was the den of a mother bear who he has been tracking since she was a cub! She is now 11, and they don't have cubs until they are 3-4 years old! How cool is that. Now he's got her cubs to track. What happened was she had only one cub. Then another bear had one cub and she rejected it (don't ask me how this happens since they are in hibernation when all this happens) and they put the cub with this other mother, and she is fine with it, and when she wakes up she'll have 2 babies. They called it a forced adoption. I find it all very fascinating. And slightly confusing, but all are doing well.

Here is mama bear weighing in at a healthy 200 pounds. She's soft and beautiful, and in a nice sleep for the safety of all concerned.

Here are the two handsome men in my life. Gosh I love them so much! Oh and don't over look the two wiggly, fuzzy bear cubs they are holding. I was told they were about 7-8lbs, soft, warm, healthy, wiggly and made funny bear sounds.  What an amazing experience for them!  They had to hike in about a mile on snow shoes to get to the den too. There was lots of snow! (The red tags in the ears is the tracking device).

Here is the den they live in. It's trees and brush with about 2 feet of snow on top of it. My son was way impressed with it too.
I had my son write a paper on what all they did that day and hope he always remembers this amazing experience. How often would something like this happen?! I'm so happy they got to go and do this together.
Have a great day all!!!