Some bears are slowing down
September 2, 2010 – 8:41 PM CDT
The second day of hunting is over and our radio-collared bears are fine. We learned that one bear was registered today (none yesterday) at the nearest check-in station 8 miles from the field station. We do not have any additional information so we don’t know if it was taken from the study area or not. We’ve seen no evidence of baiting or hunting yet within the study area. Hunters that we have heard will arrive this weekend have agreed to spare radio-collared bears.
June is showing more pre-denning behavior. After her active day yesterday—despite a heart rate of only 62—she spent today in one spot near a lake. In the past, bears that were almost ready to den have spent a few days near water—drinking but not eating. A physiologist surmised that they drank to purge their bodies of waste products after they stopped eating. Other bears have shown different pre-denning behavior.
Two years ago, when June was also pregnant, she moved several miles toward a den on the night of September 1. She was in that den when we checked midday on September 6. We hope she doesn’t den where she is now. The area is safe from hunters, but is far from roads and it would be a nightmare maintaining a den cam there.
Lily and Hope also spent the day bedded. Ironically, their bed was near a traditional hunter bait site. The bait site is not being used so far this season, though. Picture is from a few days ago in their pre-ribbon days!
2-year-old Jo is still active and has a heart rate of 70—which is slow for her. We’ll see how soon she becomes less active.
Braveheart had a low heart rate this morning (62) before moving a mile and a half to an area where she denned in 2007. We connected with her today to put a fresh set of batteries in her GPS so hopefully we can easily tell when she reaches a den site.
These GPS units have changed the way we do research, the way we teach our Black Bear Field Study Courses, and the way we work to protect the bears during hunting season. We wonder how we ever managed without them!
The current fundraising for the Wildlife Research Institute being done by Lily’s fans will directly support the research by helping purchase research equipment to improve our tracking technology. Leave it to Lily’s fans to come up with fun and creative ways to raise money!
Corelyn, coordinator of the Education Outreach, is looking for people interested in working on lesson plans in relation to the den cam that use the themes of character traits, empathy, problem solving, decision making, bullying, etc. These lesson plans could be used in classrooms, counseling, shelters and with kids at risk. There is a great need for such plans and we would like to create a group to work on them. If you have used the den cam in this way, hope to, or just have ideas, please email Corelyn at:
The staff at the Bear Center loved the ‘bear track’ cookies. The bears loved the nuts you sent from Nuts Online. They also loved the fresh-picked hazelnuts that a group of you picked and delivered from Wisconsin a week ago.
Many thanks for the voting effort for Ely’s schools in the Kohls Cares contest. You have moved them up to 51st and 54th places for an excellent showing with voting ending tomorrow. It shows again how much you support the bear study and radio-collared bears like Lily and Hope. Thank you.
On top of that, your donations to the Bear Center broke another thousand to reach $378,007 today. Amazing!
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center