A Yearling Bear Cub Climbs an Apple Tree

This summer, for the first time in a long time, a very old apple tree that sits out in the wilderness grew apples! I suspect that this tree was planted a long time ago by someone with a mining claim nearby.

My interest in the apples stemmed from the location of the tree - right on a major bear route. I immediately wondered if the bears could climb the very thin-limbed tree to eat the apples. To find out, I pointed a trail camera at the tree, hoping to capture footage of bears getting to the apples.

When I set up the cam, our uniquely colored yearling cub hadn't caught my attention yet. So, the possibility that only small bears would be able to stand on the limbs didn't occur to me.

Indeed, it turned out that only our yearling bear cub ate these apples. Full grown bears walked right past the tree without trying to climb it.

In the next photo, the apple tree is the middle tree. The yearling cub is marking a small juniper tree below the apple tree. He gave that juniper a thorough marking before moving onto the apples in the tree.

After marking the juniper, he started climbing the tree.

Like most young bears, he is a very fast and agile climber.

It turned out that I didn't point my cam quite high enough. This cub was small enough to stand on the very highest (and very thinnest) branches. If you see where the tip of his nose was in the last photo, you'll see that his paws were in that same spot a short time later when you watch the video.

His first visit to the tree was 8/11 and he returned again on 8/20.

Again, he went right toward the top of the tree. He ate some apples while in the tree, and then he picked up the ones that had fallen to the ground under the force of him climbing the tree.

During each visit, he spent only a couple of minutes at the tree but ate a bunch of apples each time.

I have a short video of him climbing the tree each time. I hope that you're as fascinated by it as I was.