If play is an indication of health, the Den Cam is showing us a healthy family. That is, when you can see them. Hope licked the lens yet again, and nighttime viewing has gone from bad to worse. We’ll see how it looks tomorrow. Jason is off for a couple days so Lynn might have to be the hero this time. Well, maybe not actually a hero with temperatures 60 degrees warmer at midday than some of the times Jason made the trip.
The hours of play today were remarkable. We had no idea before this winter. Videos will be posted later tonight on the ‘bearstudy’ account on YouTube.
Time is flying. Today is exactly three weeks before March 29, the date Hope stepped outside the den last winter and began bedding outside with Lily for extended periods. It is less than three weeks before March 28, the date Jack stepped on the scale last spring and revealed a 22% weight loss between August 30, 2009, and March 28, 2010. With all the activity in the den and the amount of milk Lily must be producing, we don’t know what to guess her weight loss will be. She weighed 234 pounds on August 28, 2010. If she loses 22%, that will be a loss of 51 pounds. It will certainly be more than that—probably a lot more.
Last night’s opinion poll on Northland’s News Center Channel 6 was overwhelmingly (98%) in favor of protection—currently 1709 to 32. We hope officials will see that and take note. There is still time to register your opinion at http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/—right-hand column halfway down.
The online petition “PROTECT Radio-collared Bears in Minnesota” continues to climb—13,879 signatures from at least 132 countries at this moment. The comment from signer # 7835 was from noted bear biologist Dr. Steve Stringham of Alaska, saying, “As development pressures degrade or destroy more and more bear habitat, and lessen the ability of bears to withstand other human impacts, our ability to sustain healthy bear populations will depend on an ever-improving understanding of bear population ecology and behavior.”
Steve, well said. That goes along with our feeling that Minnesota’s bears belong to all Minnesotan’s, and having any of these 9 bears killed by hunters is a disproportionate loss to all Minnesotans and the world.
Lily fans on Facebook went over the 130,000 mark today. That’s a lot of people to deprive of educational opportunities if a hunter decides to shoot before looking twice for ribbons.
Again, all we are asking for is that radio-collared bears wearing ribbons be legally protected in the 9 townships between Ely and Tower, Minnesota. These towns are about 22 miles apart. For that concession by officials and the hunters, we would agree to limiting the radio-collars to 25 bears and have the law revisited in 5 years. We currently have radios on 9 bears. We’ll expand that to about 12-15 by late summer if we can get radio-collars on Lily, Hope, Shadow, Jewel, and Juliet’s 2 female yearlings—all females in the single clan we are studying.
Thank you and Team Protect for all you are doing at this critical time.
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—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center