Bubba and Beefus

Sharing our Smoky Mountain digs with Mother Nature’s menagerie keeps the guest list in a constant state of flux.

Smoky and his clan are regular visitors, and among them are Bubba and Beefus. These two large, dominant boar bears are not the best of buddies, especially during the late May to early July black bear mating season when their girlfriends take precedence.

Today Bubba wandered by with a somewhat mangled muzzle and his left eye swollen shut. I thought about asking him what Beefus looked like but, as the pic depicts, he didn’t appear to be in a conversational mood ☹. Perhaps he was upset because, even though he’s a senior bear, his injuries aren’t covered under Medibear . . . I know . . . that was really bad 😊

The average breeding age for black bears is 3 1/2 years. However, the intense competition from older, bigger males pretty much eliminates younger males from becoming amorous with the ladies. Boars that encounter sows with cubs will sometimes kill the cubs to initiate estrus and breeding. The biggest bears in the population are promiscuous, prolific breeders. Their girlfriends aren’t chaste either, often having more than one mating partner.

Bears exhibit one of Nature’s fascinating adaptive phenomena . . . delayed implantation. The fertilized eggs (blastocysts) do not implant in the uterine wall until the start of denning season come winter. Should the female fail to attain sufficient body fat or weight during the summer and fall, the embryos will not attach to the uterine wall and develop.

If I’m able to capture a pic of Beefus I’ll send it along so we can surmise who successfully rendezvoused with the girlfriend, and if Bubba is the one wishing he had stuck with foraging acorns.

“ God made the wild animals according to their kinds . . . And God saw that it was good.”

Genesis 1:25

I M Blessed . . . May U B 2