Den visit postponed

Hope licking the roof of the den this morning

The den visit to fix the outside-the-den PTZ camera and reposition the inside-the-den camera got set back a day. We were set to leave when we realized we had misplaced something we needed—so had to call it off. The missing item has been found. We’re on for tomorrow!

We have been enjoying the new amplified sound. It isn’t perfect, but we are hearing more than before. We have heard frequent fussing by Hope today and some humming too. This suggests she is continuing to suckle and is doing that far more than has ever been reported. We are all learning together. Linda Gisbon is working on a video from our visit to the den on Dec 31. It is currently posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpMQFQMxztc and will be added to the bear.org website later tonight.

Is that a Lily-wink?

The Den Cam Team is looking closely at how to eliminate or reduce the hiss. Bill Rice found a piece of equipment that might help. He is buying and donating it. Many words are floating around, including bandwidth, balanced, unbalanced, XLR, Cat 6, milliwatts, etc. They all seem to know what they are talking about so we’ll leave it up to them to come up with a solution.

An unsung hero in the Den Cam success is Eric vanBok the web technician for both bear.org and bearstudy.org. He has made many changes to eliminate the web site crashes we experienced last year and to streamline things on the websites. More changes are coming.

Behind the scenes of 'The Bear Family & Me' -- Jonny Young and Gordon Buchanan

A flood of emails resulted from the BBC’s ‘The Bear Family and Me’ series just completed in the UK. Everyone enjoyed seeing Lily and Hope. Some suggested improvements, so we passed those on to the producer in case the BBC does a sequel of Lily, Hope, and the new cubs(?) as they emerge and begin life in the big world in 2011. A nice review of the series is at http://www.indielondon.co.uk/TV-Review/the-bear-family-me-complete-series-review .

Lily and Hope are becoming famous. The word is getting out. Today, they were featured on the Weather Channel at http://www.weather.com/outlook/videos/hibernating-bear-is-a-hit-on-internet-19243.

Meanwhile, the Den-watch Team of Janet Dalton, Lynne Cann, and at least 112 den-watchers have starting their data collection. Volunteers are entering data into an Excel spreadsheet at one-minute intervals to record the vocalizations and activities they are observing.

Below is a sample of the codes they are using to record Lily’s activity:

os - out of sight

od - out of den

sl - sleep silent

sn - sleep snoring

rs - rest eyes open

gs - groom self

gc - groom cub

gh - groom Hope

nc - nurse cub

nh - nurse Hope

nb - nurse both

pc - play cub

ph - play Hope

po - play object

sc - scratch

th - tongue-lick Hope

tc - tongue-lick cub

es - eat snow

ef - eat food

eo - eat other

rb – rake bedding

cp – change position

ot – other

lb – in labor

If you are interested in learning more or volunteering to collect data please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

A couple more stories came in to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to total 87. There were over 100 when we lost the file, so we’re still waiting and hoping that all can be re-sent. The purpose is to make a book ‘Bear Tales’ that has many short stories of ordinary bear encounters. We envision this as a bedtime story book for children. We know nearly all bear encounters are benign. We want your stories.

Of particular interest to Team Protect and the Letter Writers, Governor Mark Dayton selected the new Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Commissioner. The story is at http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/blogs/113004954.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O%3ADW3ckUiD3aPc%3A_Yyc%3AaUac8HEaDiaMDCinchO7DU. More on letter writing soon.

Welcome again to the many new Lily fans joining the ‘Lily the Black Bear’ Facebook page. The Facebook group went over 121,000 fans today, and we know many more are following Lily and Hope separate from Facebook. You are joining a group that is caring, active, and a major force for bears. Among our goals:

Learn all we can about bears, including Lily and Hope, by replacing misconceptions with facts through scientific research.
Share that information with the world, including classrooms. Some of the research and education involves us all learning together directly from the bears themselves by watching Lily and Hope on their Den Cam.
Win protection for the radio-collared bears in this study through a DNR Commissioner’s Order or through the legislature.

Thank you for all you are doing.

—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center

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