Another day, another day closer to views of Lily and Hope. Nobody has been to their den since October 29—before all the snow. We’re wondering how the opening will look covered with enough snow to bury it—or nearly so. So far, over three feet of snow has fallen, but it settled. When Lynn and Donna took their walk on Christmas, they sank down 16-18 inches without snowshoes.
Finding that one antler from the big buck on Christmas got Donna started. She had to find the other one. Today, a determined Donna doggedly snowshoed until she found it. Her tenacity paid off. Lynn was amazed. It is the biggest antler he had ever seen on a live deer. People will like seeing it outside the viewing windows at the Bear Center. Thank you, Donna!
Donna’s feat reminded Lynn of the nice Christmas walk, finding the first antler from the big buck, tracking a wolf pack, and checking the two beaver lodges on Woods Lake near the Research Center. They found that the beavers have enlarged a newer lodge—about 10 years old—and are not using their older lodge this winter. The old one was built 33 years ago in 1977 according to the previous property owner. The beavers came and went several times since then as they ate the best foods along the shoreline and had to move on to let the vegetation recover. Favorite trees are aspen, willow, and alder. Their food is now getting short again. This fall, they felled a birch tree over a foot in diameter and cut down several red maple saplings on the bank near the field station.
The beavers in the old lodge showed us a lot back in the mid-1990’s. Doug Hajicek and Lynn put a video camera in the lodge and saw things they never expected. The monitor on Lynn’s desk, 200 yards from the lodge, showed muskrats entering the lodge to groom the beavers and sleep next to them. It showed a mink coming in and killing a muskrat while the beavers were out under the ice gathering branches to bring in from their food cache and eat. Everything happened in total darkness, but the infra-red video camera could see in the dark. The beavers were active all winter.
This year, the only lodge with a food cache is the newer one. It has a snow-free breathing hole on top. The older unused lodge has no breathing hole.
The den cam installation team will be heading our way tomorrow evening. We’re crossing our fingers that no one forgot anything for the big setup of the Den Cam on Thursday.
We saw your surprise donations bringing the debt below $126,937 before the end of the year!
Thank you for all you are doing.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center