Lily - July 30, 2012The goal today with the Bear Course group was to see what the radio-collared bears were up to. Faith was our first choice, but she proved to be too elusive. We gave up after a couple hours.
Cattails fed on by bears - July 30, 2012At midday, we found Lily resting in a cedar swamp near a cattail-feeding site. Bears feed on the soft pulpy stems of cattails. She let us see her beautiful face and eyes as she posed briefly at a log.
In early afternoon, we found Aster also resting in a cedar swamp.
Aster bedded in cedar swamp - July 30, 2012Probably the highlight of the day was June in late afternoon. Her GPS locations showed she was foraging in a huge clear-cut most of the day. We decided to check it out. As we entered the clear-cut, we saw the white pines had been left standing for the next forest and the forest after that to grow up around these long-lived trees. It reminded us of Lynn’s battle nearly 20 years ago to manage Minnesota’s last two percent of white pines sustainably. That battle had saved these trees. The management policies Lynn instigated are still followed today. See the White Pine Society’s web page at www.whitepines.org for more.
June standing in raspberry patch - July 30, 2012To see what June was doing, we homed in on her telemetry signal and saw her far in the distance in a huge patch of raspberry bushes loaded with berries. She saw us at the top of a hill. She sat contemplating us for many minutes before accepting “It’s me bear” and making her way to Lynn. She was good enough to pose standing up by one of the white pines that was spared.
June standing at white pine - July 30, 2012As June walked away, we watched her picking raspberries as she went. As we left, flocks of white-throated sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis)—June’s main competition for the berries—flew up before us.
The Lilypad Cook Book is now available in the Bear.org Webstore at http://www.bear.org/website/new-items/product/5381-a-bear-necessity-cookbook.html. The cookbook was made by Lily Fans for Lily Fans and has recipes from at least 250 Lily Fans. So many familiar names.
The $15,000 check from the Lilypad Picnic Committee arrived today, officially raising the Hope Education Building fund to over $550,000, leaving under $350,000 to go. Thank you!
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center