The Fat Bears Story

The Katmai National Park and Preserve’s Fat Bears Story.

I'll report it like a mainstream media article first:

Sisters Breaking Traditional Molds On The Road To Reproductive Success

Two Alaskan Brown Bears are going where no others of their kind have gone before. And it's proved successful for them.

Factoids You Need, To Appreciate The Story

Unprecedented Fat Bear extended family first spotted in 2022. 

909's cub goes to live with auntie 910

909jr is into its 3rd year of life, 910jr now in its 2nd year.

So The Story So Far

909, at a year older than her sister 910, has her first cub, 909jr. The year started ordinarily enough, but when the following year proved to be a rich and successful year for Fat Bear contestants, and when her sister 910 also had a cub, 909 and 910 did something that other Brown Bears never did  - they moved around together, foraged and fished together, and their cubs played together through the entire season.

It's unknown if the group hibernated together but there may be a non-zero chance that they did. (Ed: this is supposition on the part of the reporter and was not a confirmed scientific opinion.) The following Spring, the amazing thing that happened was heartwarming: 909jr stayed with auntie 910, freeing 909 to go off and (presumably) mate again. 

If true, and if 909jr and 910jr learn a newfound sense of society, then the reproductive advantages of such a strategy may prove a turning point for the 909/910 group and perhaps one day for all brown bears.

Now I'll go back to my own style.

I'm going to be looking for one particular Fat Bear Tale in 2024, the one about 909 coming back with another cub and probably that cub also leaving her in 2025 to go live with auntie 910 while (presumably) 909jr goes out on its own. And then returns to a social group it remembers fondly. 

Just imagine - by being free from her cub, 909 is able to have another cub sooner than she would normally have been able to. By forming a family unit, these two ladies have created a way to fit more cubs into a given period of time. By being together for various generations, the cubs will begin to form habits conducive to more social behaviour, and if they stick it out for a few more years, their group will begin to grow, with "nursery aunties" and "mother aunties" making a noticable bump in fecundity. 

This shows several things:

1. It's generally the females of solitary species that form socially cohesive groups because they're bound to raising infants, and many paws make light work.

2. It only takes a "right" combination of genes to create a greater likelihood of social cohesion emerging.

3. Since such social groups are more likely to be closer genetically, the trait concentrates in the group.

4. Also, since the cubs have been reared and raised in atypically larger groups, they'll themselves begin to form social groups like this more readily.

And I think that perhaps it's also a good overall simile for how ANY organism becomes more successful through being more social. Why isn't it seemingly working for us any more?