Lily and Faith - Dec, 20, 2011When we first turned the cam on, Honey was rearranging bedding and kept blowing and chomping in Lucky’s direction. Not sure why as Lucky wasn’t even moving. At one point, he raised his head and moaned before tucking it back in. As we write this, they are quietly sleeping. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Lily and Faith are going to teach us more than we thought this winter, and it’s almost embarrassing. We predicted that Lily would finally settle down and mostly sleep. We thought Faith would, too. They are moving and nursing and rearranging bedding. Lily even got up and walked around enough to disappear for a short time. We suspect she did not leave the den, though. It’s a big den and she was just out of camera range. We’re all learning together.
Lily still has her big collar on. We took a small collar like she wore last year to her den but the steep 7-foot climb must have looked too much for her. She wouldn’t come out. She’s doing okay with the big collar, but we like to go the extra step and give them a little one for the winter. If things go as planned, we won’t be making many visits to the den this winter. Lily didn’t bother to lick the lens or ‘adjust’ the camera when she was up today.
A viewer posted a video of the action in Lily’s den at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsS40-Lkrx4&;feature=youtu.be.
After reading comments on our ‘Education, Education, Education’ update of Dec 16, we realize we may not have made our point well enough. We will address it further tomorrow.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center