Lily and family are deep in the woods, like June and Jo and their cubs. Juliet is safe, too. The 4-inch gash in 2-year-old Jordan’s scalp is healing. He picked that up during mating season. It will be one of the marks we use to identify him (picture). It’s in front of his right ear.
All seems well at this moment (5:42 PM).
We saw a question from a Lily fan asking if Hope is still nursing. Yes, and she probably doesn’t realize how lucky she is. She may be the only yearling in the Northwoods nursing at this time.
Another question from a Lily fan was about water consumption during hot, humid weather. Yes, they do drink, but they also get in the water and stay in the shade to avoid taking on excess heat when they still have the winter fur they are now shedding. In a few weeks, they will be hardly drinking if the berries are as good as we think they’ll be. They get so much fluid with the berries that we found them going 24 hours without drinking when we followed them during berry season which peaks in late July and early August.
Your heroic voting and huge support for the area where the radio-collared bears live is certainly recognized by the officials at Coca Cola. Last year, they were amazed by your support for Bear Head Lake State Park. This year, when they saw the same thing happening for Soudan Underground Mine State Park, they had to ask if it was the same group and how such an out-pouring happens. We guess your power kind of stands out when the park you support has more votes (137,000) than the next 9 places put together. To vote, go to http://www.livepositively.com/#/americasparks/leaderboard and vote over and over. Coca Cola is working out the glitch that made 2 Soudan parks. All your votes will count.
Thank you again for your orders of the 3-DVD set of the full-length BBC version of “The Bear Family & Me” at http://www.bear.org/website/gift-shop.html?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=841&category_id=8
T. R. wrote a blog for hunters, clarifying what we do and straightening out misconceptions in his much appreciated quest to obtain hunter support for protection of the dozen or so radio-collared bears at http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/blogs/michels.html . Currently, only 8 bears are radio-collared (June, Lily, Juliet, Jo, Dot, Shirley, Sharon, and Star) and only 5 of them have GPS units. Donna was seen with her 3 cubs, and we’re looking for an opportunity to get a radio-collar and GPS unit on her. Jewel is being elusive after dropping her radio-collar. Same for Braveheart.
We are thankful that Lily fans and Team Bear are holding a Special Event Drawing to put a dent in the $5,000 needed for an enclosure for Honey in case she has cubs and needs solitude. The event will begin Friday (tomorrow) at 11:00 AM EST and go until Sunday at 11:00 AM EST. Team Bear has five (5) levels of possibilities for one winner to win all 15 grand prizes. The number of grand prizes will depend upon the donations received. Plus, there will be token prizes given away as the drawing reaches each of the five levels.
Thank you for all you do!
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center