While 8 years old at this point in time, the 2009 pictures snapped by photographer Tom Sears of the New Hampshire Black Bear mom and her 5 cubs is worth viewing every Spring.............If you allow, just as the theatrical film LOVE ACTUALLY is a movie that thousands of Americans watch every Christmas and holiday season to renew the bonds of family and good tide, so too is this picture of the Bear family all about the never ending bonds of family and the spirit of renewal ................Enjoy the pictures!

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Rare Black Bear Quintuplets Caught on Film!!

Kristin Underwood
Science / Natural Science

October 27, 2009

Image via: Tom Sears

Image via: Tom Sears

Bear Quintuplets - once in a lifetime photo

Black bears typically have two cubs; rarely, one or three. In northern New Hampshire, a black bear sow gave birth to five healthy young. There were two or three reports of sows with as many as 4 cubs, but five was, and is, very extraordinary.

The photographer learned of them shortly after they emerged from their den and set a goal of photographing all five cubs with their mom - no matter how much time and effort was involved.

He knew the trail they followed on a fairly regular basis, usually shortly before dark. After spending nearly four hours a day, seven days a week, for more than six weeks, he had that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and photographed them. He used the  equivalent of a very fast film speed on his digital camera. The print is properly focused and well exposed, with all six bears posing as if they were in a studio for a family portrait.

It looked like on of those sappy, hokey forwards when I opened the email about black bear quintuplets. Yeah sure, I thought, and now if I don't pass this email along to 50 of my best friends, I'll have bad luck breathing down my neck, right? Or I'll sprout wings and fly away. Well turns out the photographer Tom Sears does exist, and so do all 6 bears, a real rare find indeed.Black bears typically have two cubs (rarely one or three), with five exceedingly rare. So Sears was shocked when he heard reports that a female black bear had 5 cubs in the early spring of 2008. For 4 hours a day, 7 days a week for six weeks that spring Sears sat outside poised and ready to get a shot of all five together. (Mind you, this is all taking place in New Hampshire. In the winter. So sitting outside for hours on end takes some serious devotion to your craft, not to mention aserious parka and boots). Finally, Sears was able to capture his shot (see above) of the family in action. Then he left the bears alone, not wanting to attract too much attention or get them used to people.

Throughout the summer and fall, Sears would get reports from neighbors that the bears were still wandering around in the area. That winter all six bears went back into hibernation and thats when Sears got the bright idea to take another shot of this famous family. On April 25, 2009, Tom managed to catch all six in action lumbering down their usual paths.

Now having read that, and having seen the images of the five (good luck) bears, we ask you to forward this article along to five of your closest confidants or risk angering Mother Nature and never being able to grow another plant again. Just kidding.