Bears And Mirrors
Azucena Mcquay
Self awareness is a measure of intelligence. A captive chimpanzee reportedly sat in front of a mirror in a cage and eventually touched a dot on its forehead, showing that it realized the reflection was of itself.
All three looked at their reflections calmly with none of the tension in their eyes, ears, muzzles, and lips one sees in meetings between strange bears. The clear, vertical reflections apparently differed enough from reflections in water to be noticed.
In this way, bears differ from some birds that attack their reflections. These were savvy wild bears. It would be interesting to see reactions of captive bears that have never seen their reflections in water and are not busy with full wild lives. Would they be faster or slower than chimpanzees to realize that the reflections are of themselves?
While Sister playing Bearbies with Lizzie, she tells Sister to wait as she has a surprise for her. When Sister overhears Lizzie and her Mama talking, she is mistakened to believe she has 'big ears'. Meanwhile, the carnival is happening this weekend and the House of Mirrors is returning which Mama and Papa are excited about. While up in her room, Sister wears a hat that covers her ears, even after some assurance there is nothing Mama can do will convince her otherwise. So instead Mama takes Sister to the carnival and to the House of Mirrors where their mirror images distort them in every way, shape and form imaginable - fat, thin, stretched, squished, until finally Sister finds herself staring at a mirror that makes her ears look truly elephantine. By comparison, Sister realizes that her ears are not big and that bears come in all shapes and sizes. The important thing is that our inner goodness speaks to who we are much more than our outward appearance does.
Big Bend Black Bears are always good to see on any trip to Big Bend National Park.They are a sign of a return to the past prior to extirpation. Before I get to the bears, I want to add a few other parcels to my recent visit to Big Bend.
My eye caught an unusual object in the brush on the way back to camp. It was an old leg trap. The trap was anchored by a chain to the roots of a tree. Furthermore the roots had grown around the trap. I managed a picture and found out a little about the manufacturer.
Although Big Bend Black Bears were indigenous to the Chisos Mountains and other sites in Texas, when park was established in 1944, there were no resident bears in the park anymore. After the bears were victims to hunting, trapping and ranching. Furthermore the bears wandered only infrequently through the park from their sanctuary across the river in Mexico. Later in 1969, and in 1978, female bears with cubs were seen in the Chisos Mountains. This re-colonization has continued and now the Big Bend Black Bears are no longer a rare sight in the Park.
I observed these bears travelling on the edge of the Basin Campground on a very quiet afternoon with almost all campsites unoccupied. The Female had an entourage of 3 cubs and they briefly explored the western edge of the campground before dropping down into the Window drainage. I was fortunate to capture this family in their travels.
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At the beginning of the legislative session, what to do about the all-time high bear sightings and damage in Connecticut seemed poised to overpower other environmental issues. But that has not happened.
But bears have still gotten into homes. Rand said DEEP has generally responded promptly to such incidents, which perhaps allays another fear that DEEP might not move quickly enough to provide permits to farmers harmed by bears.
SEDRO-WOOLEY - The National Park Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have announced their decision to actively restore grizzly bears to the North Cascades region of Washington, where the animals once thrived for thousands of years. The last confirmed sighting of a grizzly bear in the U.S. portion of the North Cascades ecosystem was in 1996, and populations have declined primarily due to direct killing by humans.
The decision, outlined in the recently released Record of Decision, aims to restore grizzly bears to the ecosystem through the translocation of three to seven bears per year from other ecosystems in the Rocky Mountains or interior British Columbia. The goal is to establish an initial population of 25 bears over a period of five to 10 years.
"We are going to once again see grizzly bears on the landscape, restoring an important thread in the fabric of the North Cascades," said Don Striker, Superintendent of North Cascades National Park Service Complex.
The U.S. portion of the North Cascades ecosystem spans roughly 9,800 square miles, an area larger than the state of New Jersey, and contains some of the most intact wildlands in the contiguous U.S. Approximately 85% of the mountainous region is under federal management.
Under the decision, grizzly bears in the North Cascades will be designated as a nonessential experimental population under section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act. This designation provides authorities and land managers with additional management tools that would not otherwise be available under existing Endangered Species Act regulations.
"The final 10(j) rule is based on extensive community engagement and conversations about how the return of a grizzly bear population in the North Cascades will be actively managed to address concerns about human safety, property and livestock, and grizzly bear recovery," said Brad Thompson, State Supervisor for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. "It provides an expanded set of management tools in recognition that grizzly bear recovery in the North Cascades is dependent on community tolerance of grizzly bears."
Public feedback played a crucial role in the decision-making process. During the fall 2023 public comment period, more than 12,000 comments were received on both the draft Environmental Impact Statement and the proposed 10(j) rule.
The National Park Service has not yet set a timeline for when the translocation of grizzly bears to the ecosystem may begin. Updates will be published on the park website, and partners and the public will be notified of implementation plans as they develop.
Animals that pass the mirror test will typically adjust their positions so that they can get a better look at the new mark on their body, and may even touch it or try to remove it. They usually pay much more attention to the part of their body that bears a new marking.
Many species respond aggressively, or even show affectionate behavior. In such cases, it might be that the animal mistakes its reflection for another of its kind. This can lead to some amusing sights for human observers.
Currently, 9 non-human animal species pass the mirror test. Not all individuals of each species pass, but many do. This list of animals that have passed the mirror test examines how each species responded during testing.
Asian elephants display a wide range of reactionary behaviors when they see their reflections in mirrors, and will respond to colored markings placed in-view on their bodies. However, not all of the elephants in a study2 by Joshua M. Plotnik passed. This might be because the normal behavior of elephants conflicts with what passing the mirror test requires.
Many gorillas have failed the mirror test. When shown a mirror, a number of silverbacks have exhibited aggressive behavior. It has been speculated that most of the gorillas and other primates who do not pass the test may have inhibited behavior due to the presence of observing humans.
Additionally, gorillas will often avoid eye contact with their reflection. By avoiding eye contact, gorillas are likely not able to look at their reflection long enough to realize that it is themselves who they are seeing. Koko the gorilla, well known for having learned sign language and performing well in other cognitive experiments, was the first of her species to pass the test.
Bottlenose dolphins usually show extreme interest when they catch sight of their reflections. They will open their mouths, stick out their tongues, and make a series of novel movements while observing themselves in the mirror. When marked, dolphins regularly inspect the marking.8
The Eurasian magpie is the first non-mammalian species to pass the mirror test.10 When contrasting colored stickers were placed on their feathers, the magpies reacted to their reflections by trying to remove the mark. Birds who were marked with invisible stickers showed no altered behavior.
When put in the company of those with blue-dotted faces, other ants would respond aggressively, presumably because the difference caused them to think the blue-dotted ant was an outsider (not a member of their colony). All of this lead the researchers to conclude that the clypeus is a species-specific physical characteristic that is important for group acceptance.
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