December 16, 2019

Bear Man

37 minutes

Ben Kilham and his sister Phoebe are the only licensed bear rehabilitators in the state of New Hampshire. For over twenty-five years, the Kilham Bear Center has taken in orphaned or injured black bear cubs and successfully released them back into the wild. And Ben has conducted arguably the longest scientific study of black bear behavior in history.

Until Ben Kilham, black bears were studied mostly using tracking collars. But Ben has spent decades following bears in the woods, sometimes for nine hours at a time. As his orphan cubs acclimate to their natural environment, he watches them. He naps when they nap, he moves when they move, and he studies their complex social behaviors. One of his very first cubs, Squirty, is twenty-four years old this year. She lives in woods near his home, and he’s watched her become a mother, and now a grandmother. Bear biologists have generally assumed that black bears were solitary animals. Ben Kilham has proven them very wrong.

Links

Kilham Bear Center: the place for all information on the rehabilitation program, Ben’s research, videos and books for sale….

Cubs Video: I could not figure out how to attach more video. For more, go to Ben’s website above…

The photos below are lent to Rumble Strip by Ben. Please don’t copy. Thank you!….:

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