We thought it would be a good idea to have a page for frequently asked questions about the CubCams with all the bears we are monitoring this winter.  We’re adding to this all the time, so please feel free to ask questions in the comments that are not answered here.  Follow BEAR League and my FB account for the most current videos and updates.

Q: What are all these videos about?

A: Snowflake was born under a house in the Lake Tahoe region of California and was two days old before anyone noticed. Now the homeowner has guests until mid-April, when the bear family emerges and heads out into the world. Upon hearing he had a Mama and Baby bear under his house the homeowner officially began referring to himself as, ‘Grandpa Bear’.  The other bears are under other houses, and the homeowners have graciously allowed us to install our camera equipment.

This scene is common at Lake Tahoe, and BEAR League has had cameras inside similar dens for the last three winters, but BEAR League does its best to encourage residents to bear proof their crawl space before the bears enter and claim it as their den.  Please check out BEAR League’s public service announcement video “Bears Underfoot” on YouTube.

Q: How old are the cubs?

A: Like nearly all California black bear cubs, they were born in mid-January.

Q: What are they nesting in?

A:  It’s insulation, but not the fiberglass kind for Snowflake and Sugar Bear.  Our other bears are nesting in fiberglass insulation, but we have found that it doesn’t bother the bears much other than some itchiness.

Q: Can the homeowner hear the bears?

A: Probably not.  The microphone on the camera is sensitive and picks up sound that would be hard to hear further away.

Q: Where are the cameras located?

A: Under houses in the Lake Tahoe region of California.

Q: Do the bears know the camera is there?

A: Yes, but the camera uses infrared light that is invisible to the bears.  It is almost completely dark in the den.  BEAR League uses custom-designed camera rigs to insert into the den with minimal disturbance of mom and cub.

Q: Why is it snowing in the den?

A: That is just dust that reflects off the infrared light from the camera.  It would be nearly invisible if it was light in the den.

Q: How do you know which cubs are boys?

A: They roll over from time to time and shows us their boy parts.

Q: Don’t bears typically have more than one cub?

A: The number of cubs is dependent on a lot of factors, but a primary one is food availability during the fall and early winter.  Bears have what is referred to as “delayed implantation” where the bears mate in the spring, but the embryo doesn’t implant in the uterine wall until fall, assuming the mother has stored up enough fat to last through the winter.   The fetus will not develop if the mom has insufficient fat stores to survive through the winter and provide milk for the cubs when they are born in January or February.   If a mom has eaten well during the fall and early winter, multiple cubs are a higher probability.  We’ve seen instances of mother black bears having as many as five cubs, but that is rare.  And the reality is, the smaller the litter, the more likely all the cubs will survive to adulthood, as feeding four or five cubs and keeping them all safe once they’re out of the den is a big challenge.

Q: Do the mother bears ever eat?

A: Not until they emerge from the den some time in April.  They spent all fall and early winter fattening up to carry them through the winter.

Q: How do the mother bears go to the bathroom?

A: Mostly they don’t.  Bears can recycle urine and feces internally during hibernation, but occasionally, they will move to a different part of the den off camera to urinate.

Q: Don’t hibernating bears just sleep all winter?

A: No!  They’re in a reduced state of activity, but they move around quite a bit, and moms will leave the den from time to time to eat snow.

Q: Do mother bears return to the same den every year?

A: In our experience, no.  Because we assist the homeowners in securing the crawlspaces after the moms leave, the odds of the mom returning to the same crawlspace is minimized.  Even in the wild, though, based on our observations, bears tend not to re-use the same den site year after year.  There may be bears that have done so, but we have not observed that in the Tahoe basin.

Q: Why does Snowflake cry all the time?

A: He doesn’t.  We are posting only a very small portion of the 24/7 footage we monitor.  The vast majority of time, both mom and cub are sound asleep.  When he’s crying, it could be for a number of reasons: he’s hungry, he’s mad, or he’s expressing his opinions to his mom.  The other cubs we’re watching are really quiet in comparison.

Q: How do you get the cameras into the den if there’s already a bear in there?

A: For the safety of the bears, we do not discuss the actual mechanics of our camera placements.  We have been around bears and have responded to bears under houses for many years, so we do not want non-trained members of the public attempting to replicate camera placements in bear dens.  We custom build camera rigs for each den reported to us, and there are a number of factors we take into account when designing the camera rig.  One important consideration is the bear.  We have regular contact with bears all over the Tahoe region, and we are familiar with the behavior and temperament of many individual bears.  Yes, they are wild animals, but they “speak” through their body language, something to which we are highly attuned from years of observing and responding to the bears we see on the bear calls we undertake.  We work hard to minimize the impact of the camera placement to the homeowner, and more importantly, to the bears.  As they say on TV, don’t try this at home.

Q: Is there a live feed of these cameras?

A: We have decided for a host of reasons not to host a live feed of the cameras, but we will continue to post clips.  One reason is that we are guests on the homeowner’s internet connection with some of the cams, and we do not want to monopolize their bandwidth with streaming video.  Another reason is that streaming video requires a dedicated computer and more expensive camera equipment.  We generally try to keep the cost of our camera equipment to a minimum as we have lost multiple cameras to curious bears in the years we’ve been doing this project.  If you’ve ever watched the Explore.org cameras in Katmai, those cams are extremely expensive to maintain on an ongoing basis, and those cameras are in a fixed location purpose-built for that use.  In our case, we have to custom-build each camera rig based on the location of the bear’s nest, the availability of power and internet, and other issues.  While theoretically we would love to install expensive, high-quality camera equipment to live stream, our first concern is the well-being of the bear, so we don’t want to disturb the bears with complicated equipment installations.