Bear cub

A fantastic and rare opportunity Sig.
An excellent shot and many thanks for posting to Fur, Fin and Feather.

Amazing wildlife image.

Great shot - we don't get too many of these in our forests;-)

Thanks, everyone! The black bears (Ursus americanus), which often _aren't_ black, have made a big comeback in recent years. We've been seeing more lately! Bears from the recovering populations in the Sierra Nevada have also been recolonizing their historic range in the mountains of central Nevada, where they had been exterminated a century or so ago.

Such a lovely acrobate !!! Fantastic capture *********************

Thanks, Marie-claire! We lucked out with this pic--

Oh WOW!!! What an incredible sight!!! I'm so glad you were in your car...that is NOT what I'd want to be seeing too close without being in a safe place. There's one thing I am respectfully terrified of and that is a BEAR. Once my husband and I were in Yosemite and Steve was ahead of me...he saw something and realized it was a bear in bushes near the trail...he turned tail and said RUN and we took off as fast as we could. The bear hadn't been paying attention to us so we figured it would be alright to run...if it HAD been paying attention we'd need to be extremely careful...it all worked out fine but man oh man...no thank you very much! Great picture though and a super adventure for you in safety!! :)

Heh. We've been seeing more bears in our area of the Sierra (around Lake Tahoe mostly) in recent years--as I remarked above, they're even spontaneously recolonizing their historic range in the Great Basin. Of course, you don't want to get _too_ blase, but they've always just skedaddled on sight. The recommendation is to make lots of noise, because the thing you _really_ don't want to do is catch them unawares. The other week we were hiking down the trail above Fallen Leaf Lake, on the southwest side of Tahoe, and a young couple that had just passed us came hightailing back saying there was a bear just off the trail. We said let's just all hike together and make lots of noise--and sure enough, the bear skedaddled. It was an unusual sighting because you don't usually find them around popular trails. They avoid people--which, of course, is what's desirable. They get dangerous when they start perceiving humans as sources of goodies rather than threats! The big problem is well-meaning but clueless people leaving food out for them.

It would have been a bad time to have had a burning desire to relieve yourself!!
Super shot indeed!

Thanks, Andy! I'd've driven on!

BEAUTIFUL !