Better late than never is our belated Happy Birthday to Lily (10) for being brought into the world by June on January 19, 2007. I suspect she had brought more cubs into the world in her den by now this January. 
Red SquirrelToday is the anniversary of when she had Faith and Jason in 2011. Faith could be having cubs right now. I look forward to seeing a lot of cubs this summer. What a difference Lily has made. Lily and family have brought so many people together. Lily Fans brighten each others’ lives and work together to spread the word about bears. I think of us all as family. Some of us are extended family, still to meet. Others are part of our day to day lives. One who has worked hard and is part of the lives of many Lily Fans is Suzie Saliga who suddenly lost her high school sweetheart and husband of 45 years. My heart goes out to her. She prefers that any donations go to the North American Bear Center.
At the 4:17 mark in this 10-minute video of Holly and Lucky, Holly gives us the best look at how she removes her rear foot pads and how she is progressing that we’ve ever seen https://youtu.be/OCThQErPNGU. She has removed most of the foot pads and
Pine siskin toe pads on her hind feet and still has some to go in the heel region. Old foot pads are dark, and new ones are light. I suspect that one reason Ted has trouble walking is that he is no longer flexible enough to contort like Holly does to bite off his hind foot pads. I believe that leaves him walking on hard, calloused foot pads that we don’t know how to remove.
Out the window, pine siskins are back and are competing with the red squirrels for sunflower seed hearts.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center