As you know, the two Louisiana cubs and the South Carolina cub will be spending the winter at ABR. This, of course, means that they will den in the enclosure. When they choose to do so, and which of the den choices they decide to use are entirely up to them. We are just waiting to see how it works out. Hopefully, they will locate in a place that is within the range of the enclosure cams, which will give us an insight into the behavior of bears during their winter sleep. They have been checking out some of the possibilities.
Boudreaux analyses one of the culvert dens. He decides to try it out, but doesn’t get all the way inside. Sister Beignet comes along. She seems to disapprove of his choice. Beignet leaves him by the culvert den. Boudreaux is not deterred. He may want to use this den, after all.Night comes and Boudreaux is still sitting near the culvert den. A couple of hours later, the two siblings settle down in the straw on the platform of the Acclimation Pen. (This is where the curators hope they den, because of the camera access). In typical bear fashion, Boudreaux rakes the straw to make it more to his liking.
The two cubs stayed in the straw all night! Maybe this is a good sign, but we can’t be sure.
In the morning, Boudreaux is the first one to come down.Beignet followed him down. Jessamine seems to be more interested in a daybed she has been working on. She rakes leaves and twigs to make it suit her. The arrow points to where Jessamine’s daybed is located. To us, it seems that the Acclimation Pen is a better location, but we are not bears.In Enclosure #1, the other two remaining cubs, Dandelion and Bentley, are sleeping in a daybed at the base of a tree.Zooming in on them, we can see that they are snuggled together in the daybed.
Everyone is looking forward to seeing when and where the winter residents will sleep. In this area, bears frequently use daybeds, and often do not start their hibernation (or torpor) until mid to late December. We must be patient.
