That's a very small black bear cub for September!

Observation by Wilson Justin:

In regards to the post on fb about the little cub. Sadly most of the audience missed the point. Which is not the cub possibly being an orphan. That happens quite frequently as this is predominantly Grizzly bear country. The point of the photo was to show incontrovertible evidence that the cub was no more then three weeks old! Think about it. Cubs are born in hibernation usually late February into March.This orphaned cub would have to have come into being live and in the fall. It cannot survive the frost or the winter. Such is the extent of the change seen in such a few years. Captured a bit under my pen or camera but still in “ discussion “ stage in mainstream stream America, if that!

I received the photos from Fred Nikolai on Sunday, Sep 25. I had been over there several hours earlier trying to determine if the mother was around and a possible threat. I saw the cub in person at no less then 20 steps and it had no fear of us. That made me think that the cub was looking for a safe place to forage, company and fellowship…

Comment by LEO Editors:

Thank you for the observation Justin. We found some interesting paper published in the Annuals of Zoology. It is about brown bears, not black bears, but it does look at the impacts of climate change on the timing of denning and hibernation. We have copied your post to one of our friends in the hibernation science world, so perhaps more discussion on the topic to come. Mike Brubaker