Holly on iceThe door of Lucky and Holly’s small pen has been open for a week. Neither ventured out. Last evening, they played in the adjacent pen as a Lily Fan captured in this 6:39 video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zxf51v2r-Q.
But then, in the dark of night, Holly went on a solo adventure, playing on the ice of the pond as Lucky had done when he was young. She also climbed the Pat Tree. Fun in the big pen has now begun. We’ll see what happens in the next few days of warmth.
A Lily Fan sent me this nice 2-minute video by my friend Martyn Stewart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNw2KA9-FUU. One of the reasons we’re friends is that we agree on the things he expressed in this video. It was also nice to see some of the wild bears he 
Holly in treevideoed when he was here some time ago. The aerial forest shots he took with his drone this past year when he was creating video to go with the nature sounds he put together for the Northwoods Ecology Hall was also very nice.
On another note, I summarized a lot of history in this 15-page letter I wrote to DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr on December 28, 2011. I feel better moving ahead on projects, dwelling on the positive, and appreciating nature, as Martyn Stewart showed in his video, but the DNR’s response to my Den Cam Permit Application made it clear I have to tell a bit of the other side of their story. This letter is a start. Letter to Commissioner Landwehr, December 28, 2011 Summarizing conflict from 1983-2011. At the time I wrote it, I still had hope and didn’t know he had already decided to end my project over the letters I’d asked to have written in support of protection for radio-collared bears.
Thank you for your help in that letter writing campaign.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center