Five grizzly bear cubs with a single adult female (one on the left of mom) were documented by West Yellowstone resident Carolyn Golba on Wednesday. (Carolyn Golba/screenshot from video)
Posted on 06/07/2024 11:38:12 AM PDT by SJackson
Five grizzly bear cubs with a single adult female (one on the left of mom) were documented by West Yellowstone resident Carolyn Golba on Wednesday. (Carolyn Golba/screenshot from video)
Within hours of the sighting on Wednesday, Frank van Manen caught word that there was a grizzly sow with five cubs in tow spotted in Yellowstone National Park.
Five cubs following mom is so unlikely that van Manen, who leads the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, pondered an explanation.
Maybe, he said, there was an adoption event: Sometimes two female siblings produce cubs in the same year, and one ends up with the other’s youngsters.
“We’ve seen that before, with adoptions taking place,” van Manen said.
Grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem typically have one to three cubs. A four-cub litter is an extreme rarity: documented just 11 times since grizzly monitoring began a half-century ago — most recently by world-famous Grizzly 399 in 2020.
“If this was truly a litter of five, it would be the first one recorded in the history of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, for sure,” said van Manen, who leads the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team.
The sighting will go down as a record five-cub litter, unless Yellowstone officials somehow come up with genetic samples from all five cubs and can prove one isn’t a sibling, he said.
Here's hoping the tourists stay away. For the tourists safety.
Maybe two mamas take turns watching the kids while the other one goes to Cancun.
Cute ‘n deadly.
How many will make it to adulthood? What’s the normal survival-rate for grizzly cubs?
Shoot ‘em and send off the samples to “23 And Me”.
Maybe just a bear-baby sitter making some extra cash...
If a male grizzly doesn’t kill them, the survival rate is pretty good.
wow. impressive!
That’s lovely. Now stay away from them, far, far away.
I hope the exact location hasn’t already been given out.
I already want to name the cubs.
How about Monday thru Friday?
Monday’s Cub is full of face...etc.
You’re not too bright are you.
Woosh!
Bears repeating.....................
That’s possible. The article (or another I read) raised the possibility of it being two litters from different moms, but they’re considering them quints unless at some point in time DNA samples prove otherwise.
That was only a 3 litter sample of 12 cubs. Overall the survival rate was near 80%
Climate change!
Maybe the black Democrat caucus will strap themselves with steak and try to play with the cubs.
Is it 399?
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