Dan Mitchell caught a mama and her cubs in the act of being bears.
It seemed to me that “mom” was perhaps showing the cubs how to climb trees. She would edge them over to a tree and then they would start to climb. Before long both of the small cubs were scampering many feet up into the trees, and mom followed at least partway.
When you look at the picture, take note of the adult female bear, perhaps weighing 400 ponds, perched perpendicularly on a tree and think about how much physical strength she must have in her claws/paws to keep her up on that tree.
Hi Tom:
Thanks for noting that photograph. I was quite lucky to be in position to see the three members of this family do such amazing acrobatics. The still photo barely shows the strength that you allude to. What is really astonishing is that she doesn’t just manage to grab the tree and hold on, but that she could actually move quite quickly up and down. The cubs were even more amazing – they climbed this tree like a couple of little monkeys!
Two other observations from this scene. At times it looked like “mama bear” was carefully teaching the “kids” how to climb. She would sort of edge them over toward the tree and then stand below and behind them as they started up – almost like a human parent who is there to catch the child should he/she fall. There was one funny moment – to me anyway – when the little ones scampered up a perfectly vertical and somewhat smaller tree. Mama looked up the tree, stood there for a moment, and then wandered over to a nearby tree that was larger and somewhat slanted to begin her climb – a tree that I imagine might be a bit easier for a very large bear to climb.
Dan