Today, Jo’s GPS locations showed she left the area where she and Victoria have been the last couple days. About 11:30 this morning, they began roaming but are still only 0.4 miles away after 6 hours of zigzagging travel. All we can do is watch and wait. We will need to change her GPS batteries soon, but see no need to join up with her until then.
Glenn and Nancy are summarizing Colleen’s movement data and so far getting no indication that she is traveling far outside her territory. The two dens she kept her collar on long enough to show us were in her territory.
Colleen’s situation is more puzzling than Donna’s as far as determining whether a hunter killed her or not. In Donna’s case, all indications are that she removed her own collar while marking a tree. There was a lot of other marking in the area, and the collar was on a tree in a position consistent with it coming off during scent-marking.
From approximately September 12 until after October 12, Colleen was in an area where she has denned before. Then her signal disappeared. In our flights, we flew far and wide but concentrated on her territory, especially where her signal was last heard and where her known dens have been. Nothing. We checked Lily’s signal coming from her den 6-8 feet down a narrow passage into granite. We easily picked up her signal although the range was shorter than for the other radio-collared bears. It should be easier to hear Colleen’s signal from the air than from the ground, but Glenn is going to search from ground level using an ATV on Monday or Wednesday.
Good things are happening behind the scenes. One thing is people getting ready for a talent search among Lily fans to discover new ways to move research and education forward. Hope will not be forgotten.
We are looking for someone with expertise embedding video into PowerPoint presentations and creating a DVD that will work on both PC and Mac. We’ve created a terrific presentation we would like to offer educators, but we have issues with cross-platform compatibility. If you can help, or know someone who can, please email
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center