Interwald:     Naming a Bear

Indubitably, with the Beaver Creek Bears, always expect the unexpected.  By way of background, after mating season, the male Beaver Creek Bears try to keep themselves entertained by engaging in various activities, including hunting ants. 

Who Dat?!  Hunting Biting Mites

Bears have an interesting palate.  For instance, ants are a bear delicacy.  In mid-July, as mating season winds down, “ant season” ramps up.  With warm summer weather, ants and other insects, such as mites, become rather active, making them easier for bears to hunt.

In August 2024, we were attacked by extremely nasty flying biting mites more than once while traversing Beaver Creek before finally figuring out from whence the mites were originating.  The source of the mites was conclusively determined to be an old stump…once amusing videos of a fawn licking the stump as mites flew about its head were reviewed. 

In 2024, Dewey (one of the 2019 Triplets) was filmed clawing this stump for the biting mites living therein.  Inspired, in 2025, as ant season approached, a camera was positioned here to see what would be filmed.  Luckily, another Beaver Creek Bear was captured on film hunting mites – likely for the gourmet dining experience, or perhaps merely to kill time after mating season’s excitement concluded.

On July 24th, the mites must’ve been active, as Who Dat?! stopped by and took his sweet time, pawing and clawing the old stump to forcibly obtain access to the mites.  His piercingly sharp claws had little issue quickly ripping the exterior of the stump to pieces. 

From initial video review, Who Dat?! appears to be a four-year-old male.  He has a blacker than black snout, and an aggressive personality, as he twisted this old stump around this-way-and-that in an effort to achieve a proper angle to lick and suck up mites scurrying about.  Who Dat?! even put the stump in a bear hug (not shown) to swing it around for better mite hunting positioning. 

After clawing sufficiently enough to get his snout entirely into the interior of the old stump, Who Dat?! turned and left in the direction of Beaver Creek…no doubt in search of a quick bath as he was extremely filthy after this insect hunting escapade.

Below is a link to a few videos of Who Dat?! hunting mites.

Every bear has distinct physical characteristics and behavioral traits.  Thus, it is often beneficial to get a lengthy second view of a bear before giving them a name befitting their appearance or personality, or both.  These mite hunting images created a couple of Beaver Creek Bear Mystery Theatre questions for us to ponder: (i) would Who Dat?! become a Beaver Creek mainstay in 2025; and if so, (ii) how long would pass before enough photos and video of Who Dat?! were captured to give him a proper name.  As luck would have it, we did not have to wait long…

Naming a Beaver Creek Bear

A few of the Beaver Creek Bears’ names are arbitrary.  As an example, The 2019 Triplets are named Huey, Dewey, & Louie.  But most of the Beaver Creek Bears have descriptive names befitting their appearance or personality.  For instance, Louie has transitioned to Laidback Lou, as Lou may be a girl and exhibits a non-aggressive personality.  Also, the males include:

·   The Big Guy – the dominant male is the largest Beaver Creek Bear…by far;

·   Merlin – deftly avoids cameras, as if using magic or wizardry;

·   Blackie – displays substantial white chest blaze;

·   Slick – possesses the shiniest fur, and eyes that twinkle at night; and

·   Paw Paw – boasts oven mitt-sized paws.

The 2022 Twins are (i) chubby Rugby, who resembles a fat, beer drinking, rugby-playing frat boy, and (ii) Mysterio (initially, his presence mystified us late in the 2023 Bear Year until coming across a blurry photo of him with sibling Rugby).  Further, the females include:

·   Queen Elinore – the dominant female (named after a Disney character);

·   Boo Berry – blue fur, and sneaks up on cameras…as if to say “Boo!”;

·   Candi – enjoys exotically dancing for and with The Big Guy; and

·   Pigg – possesses the snout of a pig.

Let’s turn back to the task of naming Who Dat?!  The forementioned Huey is a very friendly bear, and apparently took Who Dat?! under his wings for a bit.  Videos showed Who Dat?! dancing with Huey from time-to-time as they traveled together along Beaver Creek.  In between the dancing, Who Dat?! hid behind trees to prevent larger Huey from inflicting too much damage as they tussled – bears can hurt one another even when only playing…they tend to nip and bite.

Younger bears often challenge older, larger bears.  As these two were moving about Beaver Creek, Who Dat?! quasi-challenged Huey several times, but deftly used trees as a shield by routinely positioning a tree between Huey and himself, for the most part anyway.

Bears will breathe on another bear to introduce themselves (based upon the smell of their breath).  But presumably here they’re flashing their teeth to each other as an attempt to intimidate, as they probably aren’t too worried about having a dental exam during this prolonged sparring event.

Here, Who Dat?! swats Huey in face, and gives an impish grin to the camera.

As shown, while tussling, wrestling, and intermittently dancing with larger Huey, Who Dat?!’s shenanigans included cleverly and playfully hiding behind trees – as if he was that wascally wabbit, Bugs Bunny.  Therefore, for this Who Dat?!, a befitting name has arrived: Rascal.  Having arrived at a suitable name for newcomer Rascal, let's take a look at a few videos of Huey and Rascal dancing.

As newcomer Rascal became acclimated to Beaver Creek, he took an interest in the game cameras, and tried his paw at bear photography several times, as shown in these short videos (link attached below).

For those interested in foraging and mushrooms, our exquisite bride, Hunter, has an online store with various mushroom products - The Mushroom Lover.

We recommend Hunter's Porcini Rub, which is sublime seasoning when cooking or grilling rib eye steaks.  And Hunter's children's book, Where The Mushrooms Are, is a fun way to get your toddlers interested in nature and everything interwald.

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