A portrait of my favourite bear on the Explore.org web cam at Katmai National Park, Alaska. This is the sub adult bear known as 503 - he has a pretty amazing story. He was abandoned by his mother at only one and a half years old, a year too soon, because she came into estrus and was being pursued by a large boar. It seems harsh, but it was for his own safety - male bears will kill a cub that gets in the way of their pursuit of a female. He wandered around lost for a while then started following another female bear that already had a small spring cub a year younger than him. Somehow he managed to worm his way into the mother bear's affections and was adopted and brought up as her own, even suckling at her teats. This is almost unheard of in the bear world.
When it was time for his adopted mother known as Holly, to emancipate her own cub, 503 had had an extra year of being with a mother, something that has stood him in good stead. Since then he has proved to be a very confident and healthy sub adult, fishing at the falls with the large boars, playing with various bears both large and small, and still keeping good company with his adopted sister. This year he was such a proficient fisher that he ended up sharing his catches with a group of newly emancipated sub adults - another event that is pretty much unheard of, but then he is rather an unusal bear.
He is also rather a handsome chap - I have painted him a few times before. This is watercolour on Bockingford paper.
1 comment:
Aw ... what a lovely story! He's a very handsome chap.
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