Olmsted County Parks Newsletter - Summer 2024

Volume 10, Issue 2

In this issue

Chester Woods Amphitheater, False spring, Zollman Zoo's new bear, and more...

Bear-y exciting news at Zollman Zoo

Chester Woods Park Amphitheater

Friends of Chester Woods guided hikes

False spring

Volunteer highlights

Friends of Oxbow (FOX) update

by: Jaide Ryks

With the unfortunate passing of Zollman Zoo’s almost 25-year-old black bear back in November, Zollman Zoo was without a resident bear, a true community favorite. We knew we wanted to get a bear on exhibit quickly, but it is not as easy as going to the bear store and picking one out. Oxbow Park staff reached out to a zoo partner, Bear Country U.S.A, in Rapid City with hopes of getting a young bear. We were in luck! Bear Country hand-picked a small, female black bear who enjoys the company of people to live her life in Zollman Zoo!

Preparing for our new bear to arrive, staff and volunteers spent hours readying and improving her exhibit. Zollman Zoo’s new resident black bear arrived at a whopping 90 pounds on the evening of April 9th. Staff was able to take the entire next day to observe her to make sure she was safe and happy in her new home. By day three, her personality started to shine as she enjoyed sniffing and scratching on the door, playing in her pond, and enjoying some delicious fruit. She seems to enjoy the company of her Keepers and the public, and we think she will be a fantastic fit here at Zollman Zoo!

Black Bear fun facts:

Females give birth while in their winter sleep to 1-4 one-pound cubs. The cubs will stay with mom about 1 ½ years before venturing out on their own.
Bears aren’t true hibernators. They go through “torpor” which means they sometimes wake up, drink and eat, then typically go back to sleep!
Black bears are found in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.
Black bears can run up to 30 mph!
There are 16 subspecies of black bear throughout North America.
Black bears are not always black! They can also be brown, cinnamon, or even blonde.

by: Hope Chappuis

This year the weather doesn’t seem to have its mind made up. We have had uncharacteristically warm temperatures followed by cold snaps, and thunderstorms followed by snowstorms. In the natural world, we call these bouts of warmth “false spring”. A big question asked is “do these false springs affect the plants and animals, and do they affect us”? In short, yes. These variances in temperature, which trends show to be coming earlier and earlier, could mean a change in phenology.

Phenology is the study of cyclical and seasonal changes in relation to plants and animals. The easiest place to start is with winter adaptations. When the daylight hours start to get shorter in the fall and winter, many plants and animals have biological reactions. Plants drop their leaves, flowers and fruits to conserve energy and enter dormancy. Animals might get the signal to start growing more fur, eating more in preparation for hibernation, or even to migrate somewhere else for the winter. Conversely, as the daylight hours start to grow longer in the spring plants and animals use that as a cue to start their spring duties.

For plants, when paired with warm weather, longer days cue to come out of dormancy and start production of buds and blooms. If a false spring is to occur, the plants use the warm weather to expedite the new growths, only to be met with a harsh cold when the temperatures return to “normal”. When this happens, young growth may not survive because their ability to withstand that type of quick freeze is lower when developing in warmer temperatures. Oxbow Park maple syrup season was affected by false spring. The warmer temperatures meant our trees were flowing sap sooner. The cold temperatures that followed led to a shorter season of harvest and lower yield of syrup.

For many animals, daylight hours and warm temperatures are a sign to wake up from hibernation and that food should be available. In the zoo this meant we saw animals like our prairie dogs, woodchuck, and skunks earlier. For education animals in a facility like ours false spring means that they start to get fed sooner, but for their wild counter parts it can mean food scarcity. Skunks for example are omnivorous. Warm temperatures of the false spring may give them insects or blooms to feed on. However, when the cold snap occurs, insects can go back into dormancy and leave skunks with little to eat. The animals that do stay active during the winter are cued by longer daylight to shed their thick fur coats. With false spring trending to be earlier while daylight is still short, fur coats may cause discomfort.

With all this information, people might be wondering “what can I do? Or “how can I help?” Documenting phenology right in your own backyard is easy. You can keep a journal or use a Community Science app like INaturalist to make notes of when you see certain plants or animals first start to emerge. Information like this can aid scientists in learning more about environmental trends at a broader scale.