Peace reigns at 7:43 PM as Faith and Jason take their spots on Lily’s left nipples and Hope takes the two on the right as usual. We don’t know if the two lower inguinal nipples are being used but we expect they are to some extent.
Earlier, Hope was playing with Faith, taking her head or neck in her mouth. Faith screamed. Hope continued. Faith screamed again. Lily started into the den grunting in concern. Hope looked guilty. We were thinking “Stop, Hope, you’re being too rough!”
Then, as has been happening a lot lately, the camera went down. The phone rang. People were concerned about Faith’s obvious screams of pain. Jason went out and re-seated the modem and plugs and rebooted the system. The camera came up. Everything was fine.
The cubs are walking stronger and stronger.
As it gets too dark to see them outside, they go in. There is a lot of squawking, but it has nothing to do with Hope. She went outside again. Finally, at 8:12 PM, Hope comes in and the cubs mostly calm down. We wish we could see better to understand how that worked. At 8:20 PM, all are nursing. We love that peaceful sound.
It was a day of phone calls as Team Protect, Team Bear, the Education Outreach Team, and the Mods continue to do so much. Thank you to all!
We’re all managing to hold onto 6th place in the Readers Digest contest. The site for casting 10 votes a day is http://wehearyouamerica.readersdigest.com/town.jsp?town=ELY&state=MN.
Please check for recent ‘bearstudy’ video uploads on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/bearstudy#g/u.
Thank you for all you are doing.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center