We heard the first spring peepers last night and the first wood frogs tonight. There is no turning back now. Spring is a happening thing!
Lily ended the day (as of 8:37 PM) only a quarter mile from her location yesterday, although she was as much as a half mile from it earlier today. We think Hope is willing to travel but Faith is holding them back. A couple times today, Lily crossed a bay on the ice but came back to the original side. We are guessing that melting along the shore made it too hard for Faith to get on the ice and go with them. Just when we were about to go out and see if our hunches were correct, they ended up back on the side of the bay where they started.
Jo mostly stayed put, foraging around the spot she has been for 10 days. The largest diameter of her movement area today was 120 yards. The largest diameter of the area she covered in the whole 10 days was 230 yards. The area is mainly dense cedar swamp that is seldom penetrated by people. The picture above is of Jo and we posted a short video from April 15 of her and her cub at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Scwx9gAdZbs.
David Houle of Channel 6, The Northlands News Center, covered Lily et al. for Nature Matters again this evening and tomorrow morning. To see it online, check http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/iron-range/Restless-in-the-Bear-Woods-120641454.html . It is truly a joy to see good reporting like David does.
Meanwhile, you are voting like gangbusters (breaking a half million votes today) to bring money to Ely in the Readers Digest contest. You have us in 6th place, just 2,300 votes out of 5th place and 199,000 votes ahead of 7th place. The link to vote 10 times in a row each day is http://wehearyouamerica.readersdigest.com/town.jsp?town=ELY&state=MN . Sixth place puts Ely in line for $10,000. How could that money best benefit bears? We had a nice talk with the Provost of Ely’s Vermilion Community College today and there are ways the college students and the North American Bear Center can work cooperatively to benefit both. Good things are happening.
We also are exploring ways in which the voting power of Lily’s army can more directly benefit the areas where the study bears live—like Eagles Nest Township (home of Lily et al., June, Jewel, Braveheart, and Donna) and the City of Tower (home of Jo and Juliet).
We are very happy to be helping the International Wolf Center after all they’ve done for us. You have them solidly in third place with 2,356 votes, nearly 500 votes ahead of 4th place. This is the contest where each of us can only vote once through May 4. To vote, go to this link http://www.facebook.com/ChaseCommunityGiving and click “Like.” Then go to this link http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/411543539-international and register your vote for the International Wolf Center.
Thank you for all you are doing.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center