A grizzly bear loses her cubs......nature's cruel beauty.

Back in 2011, this female, GB# 94 had her first litter of cubs at age ten. After a few days of being down at the valley bottom, she encountered a very large boar/ male bear. He ended up killing both cubs as males do to bring her back into estrus. At the time I was just volunteering with the bear program, I was devastated, but it was nature's way. We shadowed GB#94 for a few hours in hopes the other cub was stashed safely but it wasn't so. Eventually she left without her cubs only to return to mating a short time after, and most likely with the male that killed her cubs. In 2012 she showed up with three brand new cubs to try her luck out again as a mother grizzly. Being a grizzly isn't easy!
As tragic as this was, it was the moment I knew I wanted to be involved with bear management and fueled my drive to make it happen. GB#94 was the first grizzly I saw in the wild back in 2006, what an amazing and complicated animal.