Inside, it was a day of paperwork, mostly following up on the good work of Team Protect and your letters in support of protection for the radio-collared bears.
The good news is that we got the much-needed static IP address and tests of the equipment sending a video stream from Pennsylvania to South Africa gave optimistic results. The video stream from Lily and Hope’s den on 3G cellular this winter might be as good as it was on DSL last winter. Doug Hajicek let us know that Cinequipt in Minneapolis has once again donated a microphone. They have good equipment, so the den sounds this winter might be as good as those from the $5,000 microphone they loaned last winter. We won’t have the hum of last winter. We know now to run a separate cable for the microphone.
With optimism in the air, it was fitting today to get Clare McCuen’s 32-page booklet ‘Lilypad Lingo.’ What a delightful, fun reminder of the words you came up with to describe Lily’s den and the different meanings other common words came to have for Lilypadders. It is mostly posts from about 73 of you on Lily the Bear’s Facebook page. So clever and bright! The booklet will be part of the Lily and Hope exhibit for everyone to page through.
BBC Producer Ted Oakes sent an advertisement for the BBC series ‘The Bear Family and Me’ with a nice picture of Lily being curious about Gordon Buchanan’s hair. Clips from the series can be seen at http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/American_Black_Bear. Not all of the clips on that page work outside of the UK, but those from ‘The Bear Family and Me’ should play.
A big thank you to the Lilypad Picnic Team! They came through in a big way last year and are already planning the second annual Lilypad Picnic for July 22-24, 2011. The Mayor of Ely is excited that the planners rented Whiteside Park in the middle of Ely to have more room for more people. You have no idea what good will is coming your way from Elyites. It’s one of the reasons 68 of the 70 business-owners enthusiastically signed the petition for protection of the radio-collared bears. We’re looking forward to putting faces with names of more of you in 2011.
Along that line, your donations to the Ely Food Shelf have climbed over $1,000, and your donations were mentioned in a big article with a picture of Lily and Hope on the front page (plus page 9) of the Sunday Mesabi Daily News. The article was about the good Lily and Hope and you are bringing to the region.
Thank you for all you are doing for the bears and toward getting them protected. After 10 years of trying, this year, with you, looks like the best chance ever for getting the radio-collared bears protected.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center