On Sunday, June 21, we will celebrate Father’s Day. The idea of Father’s Day was conceived by Sonora Dodd of Spokane, Washington. After listening to a Mother’s Day sermon, Dodd decided to have a special day to honor her father, William Smart, who was a Civil War veteran.

Smart was a widower and raised his six motherless children on the family farm. A day in June was chosen for the first Father’s Day celebration. This date has been celebrated annually since 1972 when President Richard Nixon signed the public law making it permanent.

If you are a father, chances are on Father’s Day, you will receive a phone call or be taken out to eat. If your children are young, I predict the restaurant will be either McDonalds or Chuckie Cheese. It is not until our children are grown, married and have children of their own that they realize the sacrifices that their parents had made for them.

It wasn’t until my father was dying that I really thanked him for all the sacrifices he made for my sister, three brothers and me. Pap worked in a coal mine, and would come home covered with coal dust everywhere except around his eyes and mouth. Pap did not like working in the coal mines and made us boys promise that we would never work in a coal mine.

In the animal kingdom, there are good fathers and there are bad fathers. The males of many species of wild animals do not stick around to help with raising the young. Their goal is to get their genes out there and breed as many females as possible. This forces the female’s role to be both father and mother to her offspring. Because of this, the female is more selective when it comes time to pick a mate.

The female wants to breed with the strongest and smartest male to increase the odds that her young will survive. Usually, it is the male’s goal to make sure his genes make it into the next generation and he increases the odds by mating with as many females as possible.

However there are males that take on the responsibility of making sure that their young will survive by either raising the young themselves or assisting the female in raising the young. There are some reproductive techniques, such as external fertilization that is used by fish, in which the male is the last one remaining at the nest and will be responsible for the parenting duties.

The bad fathers list in nature includes the chipmunk, rabbit, deer, skunk, weasel, bear, squirrel, opossum, porcupine and bobcat. Of course, this list could go on and on since the males of many species leave the female either after breeding takes place or just before the young are born

Therefore, the responsibility falls completely on the female to protect, raise and train the young.

The following are my top picks for Wildlife Fathers of the Year Award:

Male members of the sunfish family are usually mature and ready for breeding at the age of three. Although the largemouth and smallmouth bass are not classified in the bass family, they are related to the sunfish. When the water temperature nears 60 degrees, the male bass will usually pick out a spot on either a gravel or sandy bottom area in one to three feet of water to build his nest.

Once a site is located, the male bass will clear away the silt and sand by using its tail and fins, leaving only clean gravel. This nest is about two feet across and eight inches deep. Then, the male will wait near the nest for a female to swim by and select his nest to lay her eggs in. At this time, the male is the most colorful; therefore, he will be wearing his best suit for the occasion.

After the female selects a male, she lays from 2,000 to 4,000 eggs in his nest. The nests of several males could be selected. The male swims over the eggs in the nest, fertilizing with milt. At this time, the male will stand guard over the eggs, defending them against all comers and charging whatever comes close. He will also keep the nest clear of silt. When the temperature of the water reaches 72 degrees for two consecutive days, the young will be born.

They will stay in the nest for two days while being nourished by the egg yolk. The young will leave the nest when they are approximately one inch long. The male continues to guard them for as long as a month. When the young begin to seek the protection of aquatic vegetation, the male’s job is finished.

The male red fox and the female will select one of their three or four dens as the maternity den. In early March, the duo will begin stashing food inside the maternity den, in which the female later gives birth to the young. The male will not be allowed in the den, but continues to hunt and drop food at the entrance of the den for the female.

After the cache of food is depleted, the female takes whatever the male has left for her at the entrance and returns to the pups. The female cannot leave the pups alone for very long because they would freeze to death.

Later, when the pups are older, the male is invited into the den to meet his offspring. He helps the female wean the pups and throughout the spring and summer months, the male teaches them about hunting, danger and whatever else they will need to survive. The family usually breaks up in early fall.

A trip into the winter woods shortly after sunset might give you the opportunity to hear a male great-horned owl calling its whoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, whoo. If the male is lucky, a female answers his call. The mating season for the great-horned owl begins near the end of November and ends in January. It is only after the male captures food and then presents the meal to the female, which they eat together, that she accepts him as a partner.

The female now has assurance that the male is a good enough hunter to provide not only food for her while sitting on the nest but also for the young after hatching out. So this means that the male great-horned owl must feed himself and another adult, which is 25% larger than he is, along with two or three hatchlings crying for food. The male’s burden has multiplied, especially since the mother is caring for owlets that are unable to maintain their own body temperature for the first days or weeks of life.

This is during the dead of winter when food is scarce. However, after approximately a month, the female will begin to help hunt. This is a good thing since the fledglings will appear larger than their parents, and require as much as one-fourth their body weight in daily food intake. The young will remain in the nest until the beginning of May. After learning to fly, the young birds follow the parents, while uttering blood-curdling screams that are hunger cries.

The parents will continue to look after their young until early fall, at which time the family unit finally breaks up.

Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.