The season of black bears eating Kokanee has passed and the creek is now quiet. The bears haven’t yet gone into torpor, but are out and about seeking food to enable them to continue fattening before their long sleep.
One black bear found a mountain ash tree and decided to sample its berries.
A black bear climbs the mountain ash and eyes the berries.
Here, it has its tongue out and is about to eat the berries.
Indeed, along Arena Avenue in Kaslo, a neighbour and I have had bears demolish small Rowan trees…and I have long wondered what in the world nutrition they get from those berries that seem quickly to go right through their digestion system, coming out in the scat!!
Mountain Ash was an important source of vitamin C in Siberia and other areas of Russia in winter for humans… and true, in poor huckleberry years you see Mountains ash bear diarrhea everywhere!!! I guess my Dad had to eat mushrooms during the war as much as he hated them!