Are you wondering why you might be seeing more bears around
Big Sky? It is because it’s that time of the year when they become more active.
Bears are preparing to enter their dens and not eat or drink for five to seven
months. They consume as much as 15,000-20,000 kilocalories per day during the
period of hyperphagia that runs from August to October to make it through the
winter denning season. This means bears are covering a lot of area in search of
food.
In August, army cutworm moths, more commonly known as millers, escape the
summer heat in rock slides above timberline and bears key in on this food
source. “Bears
consume as many as 40,000 moths a day,” said Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team Leader
Frank van Manen. “These moths are a valuable natural food source because up to
65 percent of a moth’s body weight is fat by the time bears consume
them.”
In the fall,
elk carcasses and gut piles left by hunters or bull elk seriously injured
during the fall mating season are sought out as a valuable source of high
protein for bears.
It is easy to believe, then, that a bear traveling near Big
Sky on trash pickup day might find a smorgasbord of opportunity in human trash,
which provides a more consistent and easier food source than the short-duration,
seasonal abundance of berries and insects.
It doesn’t take long for a bear to key in on those areas
where non-bear-resistant trash cans are the norm, or where a few unaware
homeowners haven’t yet realized their HOA requirement for bear-resistant trash.
Soon the cycle of trash-conditioning and habituation to
humans begins. Bears then become bolder, especially during late summer and fall
when they are driven to consume what is an unfathomable number of calories a
day.
Open windows or garage doors are hard to pass up, “Especially
for young ‘naïve’ sub-adult
black and grizzly bears that are on their own for the first time, females with
cubs, or older bears with worn teeth that find it more difficult to acquire
enough natural food,” said Kevin Frey, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and
Parks grizzly bear specialist.
In addition to consuming a high number of calories, which are converted to fat,
allowing the bears to survive through the denning season, bears have a physiological
adaptation that lets them survive for five to seven months: during this time, they
do not eat, drink or defecate.
Bears
only lose a surprising 15 to 25 percent of their body mass and they don’t get
bedsores or osteoporosis. Instead, they emerge from their dens in the spring
with a slowly returning metabolic rate and increased body temperature, lean
muscle mass that hasn’t atrophied and normal bone density, says FWP bear
research biologist Cecily Costello.
This surprising fact led researchers from the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, nearly 20 years ago, to visit
radio-collared bears in their dens. I participated as a researcher in this study,
where we took blood from the hibernating bears to try and understand these
physiological adaptations and apply it to humans. This mystery is still
unresolved and remains of key interest to medical doctors and researchers.
The period of hyperphagia gives us a better understanding
for why bears are more visible in our neighborhoods in the fall. Maybe, too, it
gives us another reason to want to keep bears safe.
For the cost of your morning coffee, or less than your favorite lunch sandwich, you can switch to a bear-resistant trash can and by simply keeping your windows and garage doors closed, you keep yourself and bears safe.
Remember to follow Bernadette
Bear on social media @bearsmartbigsky to learn how to make Big Sky’s story a
positive one for bears, people and wild places.
Kris Inman is the community
partnerships coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society and oversees the
Bear Smart Big Sky campaign.
We all are familiar with using a limited palette, but do you use one? Do you know how to use a
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Event Details
We all are familiar with using a limited palette, but do you use one? Do you know how to use a limited palette to create different color combinations? Are you tired of carrying around 15-20 different tubes when you paint plein air? Have you ever wanted to create a certain “mood” in a painting but failed? Do you create a lot of mud? Do you struggle to achieve color harmony? All these problems are addressed in John’s workbook in clear and concise language!
Based on the bestselling “Limited Palatte, Unlimited Color” workbook written by John Pototschnik, the workshop is run by Maggie Shane and Annie McCoy, accomplished landscape (acrylic) and plein air (oil) artists,exhibitors at the Big Sky Artists’ Studio & Gallery and members of the Big Sky Artists Collective.
Each student will receive a copy of “Limited Palette, Unlimited Color” to keep and take home to continue your limited palette journey. We will show you how to use the color wheel and mix your own clean mixtures to successfully create a mood for your paintings.
Each day, we will create a different limited palette color chart and paint a version of a simple landscape using John’s directives. You will then be able to go home and paint more schemes using the book for guidance.
Workshop is open to painters (oil or acrylic) of any level although students must have some basic knowledge of the medium he or she uses. Students will be provided the book ($92 value), color wheel, value scale and canvas papers to complete the daily exercises.