WITH THREE MASSIVE CUBS - A Mother Grizzly Strikes Gold Late in the Season!

With the 2026 bear season wrapping up usually by the first week in November, bears have been on the mad hunt for valuable food sources. Stocking up on calories during their hyperphagia stage in which their weight gain and transformation is astonishing. While many will make their way to the alpine for what remains of the vegetation, or to dig up marmots and other rodents that have already called it a season, many spend the last few weeks scouring the valley bottoms for anything consumable, including roadkill and remains from the hunting seasons. Such a food source this late into the season insures the bears head to den in premium health and with an abundance of fat storage. It is there they enter a stage of torpor, or winter rest, this is when their heart and respiratory rates drop, and there is no eating or waste during this time. Rather their systems recycle the waste like urine and gases to preserve muscle and bone mass. During this stage, because they are not true hibernaters like ground squirrels they can be woken up quite easily and capable of defending should they be disturbed.
Working with bears I have been able to watch the bears at every stage of the season. There is of course the normal activity during the spring to fall, where late in the summer/ fall they enter the hyperphagia state where they will excessively eat to attain fat and overall health. Next there is a transition very late season where the bear has ate themselves full/ready, and become very lethargic as the heart rate lowers, which is telling the bear it's time to den. While in the den they enter torpor and hibernate, remaining domant for months at a time, only to get up to spin and readjust in the den. When they emerge in the spring, it takes a few weeks for them to adjust, as for 2-3 weeks they are in a walking hibernation mode.
In this video this sow and her three very large 20 month old cubs were in that late season transition stage, at the tail end of hyperphagia they were getting lethargic and the overall panic to find food wasn't as big of a deal. They were eating to maintain or to slightly improve. This roadkill deer seemed savored rather than devoured. By the second week of October this mom led her cubs to den, all full and ready for a very long nap. Other bears remained out another 2-3 weeks longer trying to attain what this family had already accomplished.
I hope you enjoyed this video, it is one that I originally made up from 2018, and now can edit it better for a more enjoyable watch. Let me know what you think in the comments, and I'll do my best to reply. Thanks for tuning into The BEAR GUY Channel!