The ‘Lily the Black Bear’ Facebook page passed another milestone today—119,000 fans! A veritable army of interest and support.
Progress is being made toward protection of radio-collared bears. You are writing many good letters to Governor-elect Mark Dayton! Thank you Team Protect and thank you all! A legislator called with ideas for helping get protection, and another legislator sent an email with ideas for the same.
We heard from the BBC that the three “The Bear Family & Me” programs will re-air in the UK at the kid-friendly time of 6:30 PM on three consecutive Saturdays—January 8, 15, and 22. This is good news!
We are one cold day closer to getting the den cam going. We say ‘cold’ because the temperature along the road to the research center varied from -17 to -24 F today. We’re hoping it’s a little warmer when we have to install the den cam. We also worry that not everything will work right at first. Although we are working with some of the top technicians in the world on this project, none has ever created a web cam under these cold, northern conditions. They have calculated solar power using sun conditions available through the solar panel manufacturer and through NASA. Ely doesn’t get a lot of sun in winter. The sun is low in the sky and we have short days with lots of clouds. But this is one reason we are starting three weeks earlier than last year—so by the time births are happening (that we absolutely do not want to miss!) the bugs will be worked out. Things might be especially iffy the first couple weeks because, just 3 days after the den cam is set up, Jason is leaving for over a week. We are concerned Murphy’s Law will get us during that time.
A 12-point white-tailed deer with the biggest antlers Lynn has ever seen on a live deer visited the research center and emptied the feeder outside the window. He is also one of the skinniest deer Lynn has seen, and it’s only December. A check around the area showed that at least 4 other people are feeding him, so hopefully he will fatten up a bit. Everyone recognized him by his big antlers with one broken tine. It’s the first time we’ve ever seen him here at the research center.
You are keeping up the drum-beat of what the radio-collared bears bring to the area by sending donations to the Ely Area Food Shelf at PO Box 786, Ely, MN, 55731. The results of your last major effort to help Ely got additional mention today at http://www.fox21online.com/news/ely-school-district-wins-20000.
And your donations are making a difference. It is truly unbelievable that your generosity has brought the Bear Center debt so far down. When the Give MN money comes in and your auction donations are tallied, the debt will be under $129,000. Thank you Team Bear and thank you all again!
Thank you for all you do!
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center