Capture Team Updates: 2026 Winter Den Check

Over the last two winters, the VBMS team has been out conducting winter den checks to see how our collared females are doing and to keep track of their reproductive success. 

Finding a bear in the winter can be pretty tricky. Since they are not moving much, their GPS collars don't update as often as they do in the summer. Plus, Virginia bears do not always "hibernate" in the way people think. Because our winters can be milder, they stay in a "lighter sleep" than bears up north. They might even get up and walk around occasionally. 

However, moms with new cubs tend to stay put longer because the cubs are too small to travel. Since these bears are light sleepers, we have to be extremely quiet when we approach: we really do not want to spook a mom with her cubs! 

How We Track Them 

Even when the GPS data is slow, our collars have a built-in radio signal (VHF). Once the GPS tells us the general area where a female bear is "clustering," we head out with a handheld antenna to pinpoint the exact spot. 

GPS cluster! Time to find out where she is.

Tuning in! We use telemetry to listen for the signal from the bear’s collar to pinpoint her exact location. 

Can you spot the bear? This is usually all we get to see if we're lucky. A lot of the time, we never actually see the bear and just have to guess where to put the cameras. 

Winter 2025: First Den Season 

We located 3 dens in 2025! We saw/heard cubs with two of the females, while the third was by herself.  

A successful sighting! Bear #02 and her cub during the Spring 2025 emergence. 

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4933b9_d784cfc42ce64fc4a84a3ff0f23aa833/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

If you turn your volume up, you can hear the cubs making noise in the background! (Just remember to turn it back down after!) 

Winter 2026: A Cold Season in the Field 

This year was much busier: we successfully located 12 dens. Virginia was extra snowy and icy this season, which made the hikes a bit more interesting than usual! We have trail cameras set up at all the sites now, and we're hoping to catch some good photos of the moms and cubs when they finally emerge this spring. 

Snowy selfie! Trying to reach a female to swap her collar battery. The trail was way too icy to get to the den safely, so we had to come back later with better gear…only to find she had dropped her collar and left!  

Sometimes sliding is the only safe way to get back down! 

Definitely wouldn't have made it to the sites without these snow chains! 

Setting up a camera and hoping for some good "emergence" photos! 

The worse the weather, the better the day for a den check.  

A huge thank you to all of the private landowners who kindly granted us access to their property to search for the bears and place cameras around their dens! We will be retrieving these cameras once the bears leave the site and share more photos of the moms and the cubs. Stay tuned for the update from our 2026 den checks!