Oliana walks away - July 25, 2012Today was our big meeting with Kraus-Anderson Construction about the Hope Education Building. Ten of us talked for four and a half hours. Kraus-Anderson brought to the table a top architect to digest our tentative floor plans and visions for how the building will broaden our educational mission for bears. We have been preparing for months. We look forward to what the architect will bring back to us on August 9.
Then we met with Voltz Technology for help in preserving dozens of terabytes of data, video, and photos.
As the sky darkened and rain began to fall we headed out to give Oliana her daily dose of antibiotics. Her signal was loud and we totally expected to find her high in a tree because of the rain. Eye-glasses became spotted with rain as we looked up to scan the pines for a familiar form. To our surprise she was not in a tree and came to us as we stood at the base of a white pine.
The rain was heavy and the woods were noisy. Oliana was calm with us but she was constantly whipping her head around to scan for danger. The close thunder and lightning seemed to rattle her just as much as it did us. As we were walking out of the woods, we could see her run from one large tree to the next as she worked her way through the woods—constantly on the lookout for danger. The picture above—taken yesterday—shows how well Olina's leg wound is doing. It's so small now, it isn't readily visible.
Thank you to those who came forward recently and filled out volunteer applications that show your abilities and availabilities. More volunteers are needed, of course, working from home or on site. There is more at the volunteer tab on bear.org.
A video of the bear 'Flash Mob' invasion of the Lilypad Picnic is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7wW47mKnuI.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center