With snow on the ground and 19 degrees last night, it’s hard to believe the snow will disappear, the ground will thaw, and green-up will be on schedule by May first. Meanwhile, Lily and Jo are staying put where they’ve been the last few days with their families. They’re making it easy by sending their locations to Google Earth on our computers and cell phones every 10 minutes. Jim Stroner of Digi International helped develop that technology for us and the bears. We are learning so much more about movements than we ever thought possible.
But you all know how far we are from knowing it all. The simple question of how mothers play with their cubs has us confused. In the update of April 17 http://www.bearstudy.org/website/research/daily-updates/1252-lily-hope-and-faith-taking-an-easy-day-.html we mentioned examples of rough play in contrast with how gently some mothers tuck cubs into their mouths to carry them. We remember being shocked to see how rough Lily played with Hope in the den last year, lifting her by any body part handy. That was the first Den Cam video we’d seen of a mother and cub. We wondered if playfulness and gentleness vary among mothers—or if we were seeing for the first time what happens when we’re not around. It must have been okay, because Hope turned out healthy, and she certainly is bonded to her mother. On our visit to them on April 12, Hope came up to where Lily was resting, nuzzled Lily’s face, and lay down half on Lily, snuggling against her. Faith was sleeping nearby against the trunk of the white pine.
But the way Lily picked Hope up last year and they way they both (especially Hope) pick up the cubs this year makes us wonder. Nothing we saw other mothers do shocked us except what we mentioned about the mother flinging her cub back and forth. Most of our observations have involved older cubs outside the den with an observer present. On the other hand, we don’t think our presence made a difference. Families we walked with napped, nursed, and lived their lives with hardly a look at us. That includes mothers 401 and Terry in the old days and mothers June, Juliet, and Dot in the past decade plus others we observed less intensively. With June, we’d set a high definition video camera in her den entrance, let the tape run for an hour, replace the tape, and let it run again. Those videos now play all day every day in the Bear Center in the exhibit “How Mothers Care For Cubs In The Den.” Nothing but gentleness. So we’re learning a bit about behavioral variability.
Back in the old days when sample sizes were small and observations were limited, it was easy to answer questions. Now, the range of behaviors we’ve seen make it hard to answer simple questions.
Rough play among cubs is not the exception. Cubs play rough, biting hard, with each other, their mothers, and human captors who raise them. As they get older, they become gentler. That’s why we were happy to see yearling Hope be fairly gentle in her mouthing of Faith and Hope. On the other hand, 4-year-old Lucky still bites Ted too hard on occasion, making Ted whirl around in defense.
When we see Hope bite the skin on Lily’s neck and twist her head to playfully put Lily on the ground, it looks like it would leave a bruise, but Lily reacts like it is normal. Along that line, Lynn remembers big Ted (at the Bear Center) doing the same to him with his arm. Ted was sitting facing Lynn in a playful mood with his mouth half open. If Ted was with another bear, he would be biting and sparring. Lynn knew bears don’t bite hard during play, so he let Ted bite his arm. Ted held the arm firmly with measured but unyielding pressure while he twisted his head to bring Lynn to the ground. Lynn didn’t want 750-pound Ted on top of him, so he lightly bopped Ted on the head to tell him to let go. The twisting motion with Lynn resisting did leave bruises.
Many are having a hard time getting over the fact that little Jason is gone. They’re looking for ways to remember him. Teri D’Agostino and Team Bear suggested a plaque in his honor for the Lily and Hope exhibit. Team Bear suggest that donations be made through the Donate button on the thermometer on bear.org and putting the word PLAQUE as part of the first name.
In the Readers Digest contest to help Ely, we’re hanging in there solidly in sixth place, which is ‘in the money.’ To vote 10 times in a row each day, the link is http://wehearyouamerica.readersdigest.com/town.jsp?town=ELY&state=MN. Thank you for all you are doing.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center