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Orphan, Bob Brander, Hunting Season Ends - UPDATE October 16, 2016

Shortly after dawn, the melodic croaks of ravens carried far on this calm morning, and the rising sun made aspen leaves especially golden. Red maple leavesRed maple leavesAspen and maple leaves shined brighter than tamaracks, but all were beautiful. Leaf fall will be complete for most species in a couple weeks and shortly after that for tamaracks.

At the WRI, I checked for sign of the orphaned cub visiting overnight. I couldn't be sure. At midday, he was here eating well for a couple hours. He is very shy, which makes it harder to remove the quills.

Tamaracks Tamaracks The quills reminded me of Dr. Bob Brander who is the only person I know who will reach up into a hollow tree, grab a porcupine by the tail, and pull it out. He did porcupine research back in the 1970's. Thinking of him made me want to thank him for his major part in creating a career for me in bear research. I caught him by telephone. We reminisced about the time he and I took 3 high USFS officials from Washington to the den of the dominant male of my study area. It was March 25, 1972. The fun part was me, a little graduate student, telling the high officials what to do. "Here, grab that pole so we can weigh him," etc. They joked about my high priced help.

Quaking aspenQuaking aspenA year or so later, Bob resigned from North Central Forest Experiment Station. USFS officials asked him what North Central could do better. I learned that his parting words to them were that they needed to establish a field research position to study wildlife like Lynn Rogers is doing with bears--and that they should get Lynn to run it. They must have liked the idea. Later, a high USFS official told me they were considering a new field research position and wondered if I could use my connections in Washington to get it funded. I called a friend who called Senator Hubert Humphrey who ran it through congress. Somehow, 80% of the money got ear-marked for my bear study. I apologized, but the officials said 'No problem, we wanted to hire you anyway. Just take a normal salary and do what you do." But a normal salary would have kept me from doing that. I used the money totally for operations and made 1974 the best data year of my study, as can be seen in the graph on page 17 of the monograph (Rogers 1987). A year or so later, the position became permanent. I competed nationally for it and started on August 15, 1976. They let me work at home, as needed, to finish my Ph.D. dissertation.

Hazel leavesHazel leavesI hadn't talked to Bob for decades. I mainly wanted to thank him for making a seemingly impossible dream come true. In graduate schooling, I'd been criticized for trying to do too much. I always answered, "But you don't know how hard I'm willing to work. I'm trying to do a stand-out job and become a researcher. They said there are practically no jobs like that. I said, "I'm hoping someone creates a research job for me." They said I was taking too long to get my Ph.D. I said, "But bears have slow reproductive cycles and I need to know their kinship relations to describe their social organization." I often (as now) spoke in double negatives and said "ain't," which made them question whether I really wrote my award-winning paper (Anna M. Jackson award from the American Association of Mammalogists). Then, thanks to Bob (and seconded by Dr David Mech, the wolf man), the USFS create a research job for me and everything came together.

Another stalwart who deserves mention is Cliff Martinka (April 14, 1938 to March 14, 2014). He was one of the more thoughtful leaders of the bear world. As president of the International Bear Association, he wrote his "History of Bears" (Martinka 1994, International Conference on Bear Research and Management 91(1):1-5) that ended saying there is a need to shift from the pioneer view of mastering nature by destroying habitats and exterminating bears to a new view of coexistence.

Martinka's new view is why the North American Bear Center exists. Education is the key to coexistence. The battle is hard. It pits us against powerful forces. But the battle must continue. I need to write a book. We need to complete the Bear Center and the Ecology Hall. We need to expand our outreach to students and the world. Education is what we do--together with Lily Fans.

Bear hunting season ends in less than an hour.

Thank you for all you do.

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


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