Waiting
October 1, 2010 – 8:05 PM CDT
The suspense continues.
We really hope Lily and Hope will den where they dug a den a week or so ago, but today they spent a quiet day nearly 2 miles away. And now in the last few hours (since about 6 PM), they have meandered another third of a mile away and are resting.
Braveheart is doing the opposite. After a trip through her territory that took her over 2 miles from the den she has visited off and on the last couple weeks, she is again within a couple hundred yards of it. Like Lily and Hope, she began moving about 6 PM.
Juliet and cubs and Jo are also spending long periods in very small areas and then moving to another area to do the same.
It is looking less likely that we will have two den cams this winter. We must have one in Lily and Hope’s den, and we hope they make that logistically reasonable.
The Black Bear Field Study Course registration opened at 1:00 AM EDT today and the courses were filled within 30 mins—incredible! There were some glitches in the registration software that resulted from the onslaught of simultaneous registrations and Sue spent much of today working to sort those out. It’s hard to believe that just 2 years ago we failed to fill 7 slots in the courses!
Every day we hear of advances and joy from the Educational Outreach group as one faction or another comes through with something.
Lynn was happy this morning when he stopped by the Bear Center before anyone was there and discovered the remains of a treat you sent—a very tasty macaroni salad. He doesn’t know what else he might have missed while in Colorado.
Lily’s Fans have more than doubled to 113,523, and we are beginning to see comments based on misconceptions that were addressed in early updates. Most newcomers probably haven’t seen those updates. We’ll need to address some of those topics again.
Most hunters are supportive of protection for the study bears—as is the general public—but nothing is 100%. Some people are looking for dirt. This means criticizing our research methods, painting worse case scenarios, predicting dire outcomes, and perusing Facebook entries for comments they can use to characterize Lily’s fans.
The main subject of acrimonious debate on the Lily’s Facebook page is hunting, with advocacy efforts to stop animal cruelty close behind. The few moderators we have do a wonderful job, but they are stretched thin and occasionally miss comments that make us look bad for hosting a page that tolerates such things. Comments that are not immediately deleted generate complaints that moderators are partial and that the Bear Center should lose its nonprofit status. All comments quickly become available to Internet search engines like Google. Yesterday, a hunter alerted us to a hostile comment that was buried under an update and had been missed. The moderators appreciate such help. We are currently enlisting the help of additional moderators.
You can help by creating separate Facebook pages or websites for your topics that spark heated debate. That way, we won’t appear to be hosting debates that discredit us. Hopefully this will sharpen the focus on research and education that Lily’s page was created for.
We’re excited about what could develop this winter with a den cam in Lily and Hope’s den along with a new litter. That will be a world first. We will all learn together.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center