Hope on 4/8/2010Yesterday a Lily Fan captured a 2-minute video of Holly rearranging her bedding and then (at 1 minute 39 seconds into the video) tucked her head under her chest like wild bears do. It is amazing how far she tucks her head under. The only part of her body left exposed above the straw is her well-furred back and the back of her neck. If she had cubs, they would be snug underneath with her breathing on them. https://www.facebook.com/toni.embree. 50/videos/1172781036087858/
I like this cute picture of Hope from April 8, 2010. It is a candidate for the upper wall in the Bear Center. I had brought the BBC crew to see Hope and Lily at their big white pine. We were filming “My Bear Family and Me” with Gordon Buchanan. The update for that date said,
“I didn’t think to say “It’s me, bear” soon enough, so Lily was gone when we got to her tree. When I said the right things, she came over the hill and Hope came down from the white pine—the same white pine they’ve been at for a week. Lily settled in to nurse Hope and we noticed Hope is using all six nipples now. No wonder she’s doing so well! I’m going slow getting to know Hope. She’ll let me know when it’s time. Today she was comfortable enough to nap on the ground just 10 feet from me.”
Hope was slow to accept us because we had stayed away from the den most of the critical socialization period between eye opening (at six weeks) and den emergence in order to minimize disturbance that might interfere with the credibility of the Den Cam data. Once a cub is past the socialization period, it takes longer to build trust, which is probably why she was slow to trust us in radio-collaring her.
Today, I got a nice email saying that one of my talks for the International Bear Conference at the Hilton Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska, will be on the afternoon of Monday, June 13 (2016). I suspect my second talk will be that same afternoon.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center