Lily fans are asking good questions.
What is our goal? Short term, we need Commissioner Landwehr to make an “Expedited Ruling” giving protection to radio-collared bears wearing bright ribbons in central St. Louis County. If he wants to extend protection to all radio-collared bears in Minnesota, that would be even better. In that case, the ruling should read “protection for radio-collared bears wearing bright ribbons or ear tags.” We can’t place ear tags without trapping, tranquilizing, and destroying the trust necessary for our kind of research and risking injury from trapping and death from tranquilizing. Either ribbons or ear tags will accomplish the goals of durability and visibility. We are asking for an “Expedited Rule” because that can be done without a lengthy public comment period. We need protection for this September. But an “Expedited Rule” is only good for 18 months, so we’d want that to be followed up by a permanent rule that involves public comment.
How would the rule be enforced? We assume it would involve a reasonable deterrent that considers the value of these bears and that officials would stand behind the ruling and not turn a blind eye.
Does our trust-based research methods make research bears more vulnerable to hunters? No, and we don’t completely understand it. And it’s not entirely that hunters are sparing the radio-collared bears because radio-collared and non-radio-collared research bears have comparable survival rates.
Here are the numbers that made us answer “No.”
This past fall was worse than usual for us with the loss of two radio-collared bears. That was 2 out of 14 radio-collared bears—a 14% loss.
State bear biologist Dr. David Garshelis estimates that in the overall population, the hunting toll is 20%.
This past fall was also worse than usual for DNR research bears with the loss of 9 radio-collared bears. According to Garshelis, they lost 9 out of 34 radio-collared bears—a 26% loss, and the DNR does not do trust-based research.
So losses of our trusting bears are lower than hunting losses in the overall population and lower than losses in the DNR’s studies.
How can we send copies of our letters to the media? Unlike the government people who said they preferred hard copies, the media prefers email. Team Protect is gathering the contact information for Minnesota media outlets like newspapers, TV, and radio and will have that available for tomorrow’s update and for a discussion topic on Facebook.
How can we let schools know that letters from students would be helpful? Team Protect is on this. Tomorrow, they will send information to each of the 67 Minnesota teachers who responded to the questionnaire about Den Cam use in their schools. By next week, they will send information to over 400 schools outside Minnesota who responded to the questionnaire.
How else can we gather support for protection? A hunter had a suggestion. He wrote, “I am a hunter and I think the majority of hunters would be willing to let a collared bear pass. After all these research bears are helping to increase our bear populations. Maybe researchers should think about asking the sportsman's clubs to help get this topic to our government officials.” We ask that anyone who can help gather that support do so.
What is our overall goal? To work cooperatively with hunters and the DNR to learn all we can about black bears and share the information with the public, decision-makers, and the scientific community. To do that, radio-collared bears need protection.
This suggestion just in from Olatz Azcona Munarriz: Send a copy of her magnificent book about ‘Lily & Hope – The light of the Northwoods’ to Commissioner Landwehr so he can see better what we are talking about. Great idea! We’ll do that tomorrow.
The pictures and video of Lily et al that Lily fans captured for tonight are outstanding. The cubs’ eyes are open and they seem more adventuresome! A 'highlight' video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDL3k0rNuFo, and Jason bear's escape video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnPRUBeCDk0.
Thank you for your generosity and all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center