Silly tree marking by bears!

I've shown you lots of examples of bears marking trees. They usually go up on their hind legs and rub their backs on the trees.

This was a young female bear named "Dot" who marked this tree many times. She's using the classic technique of rubbing her back on it in this photo. Sadly, she was killed by a car soon after this photo was taken. I still miss her. I look at the bear fur on the little tree, and I know that some of it is hers.

This summer, one tree has been receiving some very odd marking behavior. Some bears just rub their butt on it. One bear rubbed his forehead on it so hard that I thought that the poor tree was going to break.

You might find this video interesting because it shows the oddball ways that bears have been marking one poor tree.

The forehead marking by that huge male made me laugh. He seems to have simply passed through our area on his way someplace else. I bet that he smelled Milton and Tiny, our resident huge bears, and decided to move on. You can also watch the video on Youtube if you prefer.