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Lucky and Holly, Mike and His Competitors - UPDATE June 2, 2015

Eastern Chipmunk with cheeks fullEastern Chipmunk with cheeks fullThe 3 video clips captured by a Lily Fan show the night life of Lucky and Holly and why Lucky is so hard to get up in the morning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJWA7UDLnmI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFlNlCXdieo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ-ljvAObhI

The photos show 3 of yearling Mike’s competitors for food at the WRI and how he gets even by confiscating a gull’s piece of Spam. Surprisingly, a gull later landed where the piece of Spam is on the peak of the roof while Mike was lying where his hind feet are in this picture.

With only a month to go until the Black Bear Field Courses and only 5 spots unfilled in the 8 courses, we are getting excited about meeting like-minded people whom we can share bear and wildlife adventures. We are so glad the legislature removed for this year the bear-feeding language which would have made close-up learning from the bears difficult. Now, we’re looking forward to great fun and great learning. With no collars, we won’t be doing the “death marches,” as some called them, to find bears deep in the woods. Herring GullHerring gull flyingWe’ll actually see more bears that the "death marches" would not have left time for. And this is the year of cubs. A couple new things, Sue Mansfield has upgraded her Bear Sign session with an introductory PowerPoint presentation that gives an overview of what they will see in the field. Whatever it is she does with course attendants in the field, they come back glowing and anxious to look for bear sign in their home areas. She also has a presentation on how it is to walk with a bear. For this, she has a video of various experiences that will generate a lot of questions. This is new and super.

For the quieter times mid-day, we will get exercise going to the deep rock den where Lily denned with Faith, looking at wildlife along the way. The path passes a heron rookery, beautiful northern scenery, and looks at wildlife. I’ll be answering any questions about the flora and fauna along the way and snapping wildlife pictures along with participants to get pictures for the Northwoods Ecology Hall.

Red SquirrelRed SquirrelFor a different experience, we’ll use the pontoon boat to go to the den where Hope was born and see wildlife along the way. On the way back, we’ll take a couple side excursions to wildlife hotspots.

Throughout, we’ll have the cell phone turned on to take calls from feeders letting us know which bears are visiting so we know best how to apportion our time to maximize time with as many bears as possible, with special emphasis on seeing Lily, Jewel, Fern, Sophie, cubs, and the many other bears in Shadow’s clan, plus their big, gentle boyfriends.

Although we don’t get a lot of takers on canoeing, because it could take a person away from seeing bears, there is always the option of using the four canoes on the two lakes here. Our favorite is a quiet paddle along the shoreline of little Woods Lake. We use the pontoon boat on big Eagles Nest Lake One that is connected to big Eagles Nest Lake Two where Lily and Hope’s den is 5 feet from the shore.

We adjust the schedule according to the weather and opportunities to see bears. One of the feeders is getting twice as many bears as we are at this time. We squeeze in my two lectures when we can, preferably right after lunch on the first day so people have as many questions in their minds as possible when viewing bears and discussing what we saw. If people want to learn how to use telemetry, we can do that as a group or individuals can do it with Mike and Lorie (the people, not the bears). There’s always more to do than we have time for.

Mike eating SpamMike going for the SpamA great and unscheduled time is after dark when the yard lights are turned on and we are scrambling to identify all the bears that come in and see what new mating battle scars the big bears have that seem so gentle when they are here outside of mating season.

On the final morning, we’ll do behind the scenes interactions with Ted and the other bears at the Bear Center. Regulations prohibit anyone going into the bear enclosure, but they come close enough to the fence to smell Ted’s clean, fresh breath. He is such a joy. Honey is more of a loner, but Lucky and Holly are sociable enough to meet them close-up, too.

At the end, we feel so lucky to have gotten to know the participants in each small group (limit 8). Lily Fans and other like-minded people are hard to beat. Yes, we’re excited.

On a related note, we just saw a statement by a bear expert that misconceptions played a part in the death of the bear in Ontario. Our purpose in everything we do is to show how wrong the misconceptions are, letting the bears do the teaching as much as possible. A common comment from course participants is that the course was life-changing. There is nothing like close-up experiences with a great variety of wild bears to change perceptions of the bears from the ferocious animals we have long been taught they are to what people actually see and experience when they actually meet them. For that reason, we wish more wildlife officials and legislators were in the courses. It could lead to kinder, gentler management with less worry about liability.

Thank you for all you do.

Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center

All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.


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