How rare is this?

Dana Young

Senior Member
Yeah only ever seen 4 cubs at the most. I would say that bear is around 130 lbs and probably a sow If no cubs were by its side it would b plenty legal to shoot.
 

jbogg

Senior Member
Yeah only ever seen 4 cubs at the most. I would say that bear is around 130 lbs and probably a sow If no cubs were by its side it would b plenty legal to shoot.

Thanks Dana. My dog was over 90lbs, and the bear definitely looked a good bit heavier than ole Jake. I know the bushy fur can be a little deceiving but I sure thought it would have been a shooter.
 

308

Senior Member
Must be something in the water...

On cameras, we had our first 4-cub sow this past fall... and we had two different sows with triplets...

Bless her heart... having quints...
 

ddd-shooter

Senior Member
Jbogg, great find. I've seen three several times and finally saw 4 last year, but never 5.
As to field judging, pay attention to the length of nose and ears. Big bears have a shorter nose and tiny ears on a bigger head that often times tucks right into the rest of their body-short neck. Also, legs seem long on a small bear, big bears have stubby legs, with a sway belly. The chest on a big bear is often as big or bigger than the rump. On your pic, tall ears plus long nose plus long legs and a narrow front make it easy to say it's a juvenile. Plenty legal in my opinion, but definitely on the smaller side. It takes a tiny bear(read cub) to be 75 pounds, and many times I compare size with family dogs as well.


Edit to add I didn't realize this thread was a year old! I'm sure you've a lot in the last year!
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
Pretty rare, I'd say. I've spent most of my life in the woods here in the Smokies where we are supposed to have the highest concentration of bears in the lower 48; and I've never seen more than three cubs with a sow myself. Two is the usual here, three is fairly unusual.
 

jbogg

Senior Member
Glad this thread was revived. Someone sent me an interesting link to a black bear documentary where they studied radio collared bears in Pennsylvania. They tracked the female Bears to their winter dens after Cubs were born and found that the litter sizes were as follows: One cub was the least common, 5 cubs was as common as 2, and 3 was as common as 4. With our milder winters in GA I would have thought that 4 - 5 cub litters would be at least as common down here, but apparently not.
 

caughtinarut

Senior Member
I would like to hear numbers from here in the southern part of the state
 

CornStalker

Senior Member
Jbogg, awesome pics!! Like everyone else, I've never seen five cubs together. I wonder if they were all hers or if one was adopted. Either way, that's an incredible find.

Also, I'm curious on the documentary you found from Penn. Could you share a link? There seems to be very little black bear research literature available from the southern Appalachians. I'm surprised the UGA doesn't do more research on them. Perhaps they do and I just can't find the publications, but I'm always eager to learn more about them.
 
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