Chipmunk - September 22, 2011Lily and Faith have not moved from the cedar swamp where we last saw them, but they’ve moved to a new bedsite within the swamp—and away from den site we photographed (see Oct 7 Update). Will they move back?
Braveheart rested this morning then walked her cubs a couple hundred yards to a stream—perhaps for a drink. She then headed a half mile northwest to a remote cedar swamp where she had briefly denned in a root mount last fall (pictured) before moving back to the rock den where she gave birth to her 3 cubs. She hasn’t sent a GPS reading for 5 hours. Does this mean she has entered a den? Or has her collar spun around? Either way, if a blip doesn’t appear on the map by morning we may need to mount a reconnaissance mission to get the full story.
Braveheart in temporary den - Fall 2010Jo is still active. So is Shirley. Jewel moved a few hundred yards from her place of yesterday. We’ll track her from afar to see where she ends up. Will she go back to where she was giving active signals yesterday?
We’ll check on Sharon and Ursula again soon.
We have so many memories of Hope. A Lily fan said we didn’t have to let go of her until we were ready. Last night, we remembered how she wanted to play with us while she was alone—even though she was wary of us. We remember her wariness as we patiently tried over and over to give her a radio-collar last year. We remember how she would leap and nail a hand so fast a person couldn’t react. Cubs don’t use restraint in their bites. Injuries from her little teeth were minor, of course, and never required professional attention. After many tries, we lucked out and got a collar loosely on her. It looked like a necklace. It stayed on and she grew into it. It turned out to be perfect. When she re-united with Lily, she mellowed out and let us add ribbons. In fall, she was by Lily’s side when we tried to remove the collar when the batteries were running low.
We wondered how Hope would respond to a collar as a yearling. She didn’t want it. She would catch it with a paw and pin it to the ground, or we’d almost get it around her neck and she’d leap back. Instead of biting, she just avoided the collar. When she got frustrated, she’d make her muzzle narrow and blow at us to say enough is enough. We persisted with her beyond what we’d do with other bears because it was so important to radio-collar Hope. Four times we got it on loosely, but each time she’d get it off. Despite her wariness about the collar, she ignored us as she went about her life. We could stroke her back. We could touch her around the neck. But she recognized the collar and wouldn’t accept it. If she would only have accepted a radio-collar, she would probably be alive and we could have completed our study of the mixed-age litter. We don’t know what we could have done differently.
A Lily fan who is a true artist in bronze sculpture came forth and offered to create a life-sized statue of Hope for the cost of materials. An amazing offer!
We are designing 2012 calendars for Research Bears and Lily & Family. They are coming along well and we hope to have images to share with you soon. Lily & Family Holiday Cards are in the works as well.
The Education Outreach Team is putting together many materials for the Education Minnesota Conference. It is open free to the public, we are told, and it’s at the River Center in St Paul, Minnesota, next Thursday, October 20. Our 65-minute presentation about bears and education starts at 10:15 AM. In addition, we have two big booths that Lily fans will be manning from 7:30 AM until 3:30 PM to show thousands of teachers what they can do to incorporate bear study into their curriculum.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center