Jo’s GPS stopped transmitting so we hiked into the swamp where she has been for the last 2 weeks. We discovered a couple of well-used bed sites, one at the base of a black ash and another in a clump of willows nearby (right). The multitude of bear scats in the area showed this to be their primary bed site. Many of the scats obviously contained willow catkins and a quick look around revealed many broken-down willows nearby. Jo was not at the bed site. We found her and her big cub in a grove of cedars nearby (left). Her cub quickly climbed high in one of the cedars—still without revealing its gender. The many torn up logs in the area showed that Jo had been feeding on grubs.
We then checked on Lily and family. When we saw her on the 26th and 27th, she wasn’t interested in eating and was strangely lethargic. We worried. Her GPS readings showed she wasn’t moving much so we decided to do a longer observation of the family today. We wondered if Hope was still nursing. Of course, Faith is always a question. She is small compared to Jo’s cub.
We spent 5-1/2 hours with Lily and we’re still worried. Lily continues to seem lethargic and disinterested in food. This is not like Lily, and she has very uncharacteristic foul-smelling, watery diarrhea. Bear scat usually smells good enough that most people don’t mind handling it with their bare hands. Hope is starved for play but Lily is having none of it. This was not at all like our visit on April 20th when there was so much play, or our visit on April 22nd when they were actively foraging on snowfleas. Lily lay around while Hope foraged on new 1-inch grass blades, tiny shoots of bedstraw, grubs in logs, aspen buds high in the tree tops, and sweet sap running down the maple tree trunks. Faith eagerly licked the maple sap and nibbled the grass shoots too.
Lily nursed Hope and Faith twice during our time with them. Faith and Hope each stuck to their own sides and nursed peacefully. Hope didn’t try to horn in on Faith’s nipples. Can Lily make enough milk when she is sick? How long before she will recover? There is not much we can do except watch and hope.
While with Lily and family we noticed the hazelnut bushes are in bloom. Hopefully this will be a good hazelnut year.
A Lily fan alerted us that Discovery Channel was playing Bear Attack and that it included June bear. We echo your dismay. A trusted producer asked us if he could include June in a program he was making. We said yes. TV is the way to reach the biggest audiences. Without TV, we’d be voices crying silently in the wilderness. We don’t always say yes, though. If it’s a program about predatory attacks we know the editors won’t represent us fairly, and we say no. On this one, we trusted the producer and let him have the footage. This might also be the one in which they filmed Lynn in the bear enclosure at the North American Bear Center when he didn’t realize it. He got “attacked” by a playful cub (Lucky) and was the recipient of a blustery display by the nervous female (Honey) and was surprised to see it on screen. He apparently signed a release or they couldn’t have used it but he was less wary because he knew the producer. But in this case, the producer farmed out the program, and it ended up playing like a horror show where there is danger around every bush. Not good for bears, and the benign behavior of June and the “attacking” cub wasn’t enough to turn the program into something beneficial to bears. We can only keep trying, live and learn, and be more careful.
We have to take our hats off to Patrick McKibbage for winning the “Worst businessman of the year” award. He paid $750 to win the Carol Decker print number 1 of 350 of Lily and Hope at their den, and then he gave it back so there could be a drawing to give more people a chance to win it. Patrick, thank you! To see the print and participate, go to http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=263755115498&topic=20607.
In the Readers Digest contest to win money for Ely, we are in 6th place with 567,576 votes, which is a whopping 31,000 more than yesterday. The link to vote 10 times in a row each day through May 16 is http://wehearyouamerica.readersdigest.com/town.jsp?town=ELY&state=MN.
In the Chase contest to win money for the International Wolf Center, we are comfortably holding on to 3rd place thanks to your efforts to find more and more new voters. This is the contest where we can vote only 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.
Dana Coleman’s first grade class initiated a petition to have the American black bear named Minnesota’s state mammal and it is catching on among students of all ages. This is an amazing opportunity for students across Minnesota to learn about their state government. We think it would be cool to have the black bear as the state mammal. What a comeback for the black bear that would signify. Minnesota was one of the last states to lift the bounty back in 1965. To come from a despised bountied animal to the state animal would be a story, and it might gain the bear enough respect for the DNR to offer protection for a dozen radio-collared bears. The link to the class’s petition is http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/BlackBear-MNState-Mammal/.
Thank you for all you are doing.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center