Lily chewing footpads - Feb 5, 2012As we wait to aim Jewel’s Den Cam, we can’t help think how much these bears are doing for bears worldwide. They’re providing new information, of course, but the biggest benefit to bears is the attitudes that are changed as people see these maligned animals living their gentle lives. People see that in the Den Cams. People see that when a mother bear emerges from her den in front of researchers and is nothing like the usual media portrayal. People see that in the documentaries that reach hundreds of millions worldwide, including countries with endangered bear species.
But what triggered this line of thought was a message we received from a Swedish biologist who visited Lynn’s bear study in 1977 as part of an international group of biologists from about a dozen countries. What prompted him to write was seeing the ‘Bearwalker of the Northwoods’ documentary on Swedish television a couple days ago. The words that touched us were his saying that his visit to Lynn’s old study became the introduction to the Scandinavian Brown Bear Research Project (http://www.bearproject.info/) that was formally initiated in 1984.
Recently we learned that one of the bear.org web pages (http://tinyurl.com/GrizzlyBearFacts) has been translated into Estonian at http://fluffypals4kids.com/grizzly-facts-et . Before the days of the Internet, magazines were a popular way of spreading information. Articles about Lynn’s bear studies were featured in magazines in Russia, Japan, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, as well as South America and the Middle East.
We feel that there is a lot more good to come from our continued studies.
We look forward to getting the Den Cam realigned so the learning can continue in schools and wherever you are watching. We regret this delay.
A video of our visit to Jewel’s den on Friday is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO1qX_GQQqM.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center