RC was chasing her yearlings today—a sure sign family break-up has occurred. We’re hoping to see which male(s) she attracts now and if the potential father of her next litter will be one of the old favorites we know. We haven’t seen any of those males yet this year.
A Boy Named Sue was spotted over 6 miles from where he split from Juliet in their family break-up a few days ago. On this cool, cloudy day with intermittent light rain, Juliet covered several miles with or without a male in tow. It’s hard to see if she has a bear with her. We don’t know the males over her way, so they melt out of sight before we can get a glimpse.
Every time we see Faith we are happy to see her energy and agility. And it’s a good thing, because Lily has her family back traversing their territory again. They put on 3.3 miles since last evening. Tonight's pictures of Lily's family were taken yesterday. Lily was doing a lot of marking. The pictures show Lily straddling a small balsam tree to mark it, Hope is sniffing a balsam that has been marked, and Faith trying to do the same but getting tossed off the log as she loses her grip and the balsam springs back!
A quick trip early this morning to change Jo’s GPS unit was successful. A story about her from a week and a half ago will be on the Northland’s News Center’s news tonight on channel 6 at http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/local/Nature-Matters-Bear-Update-122837359.html.
June finally left the clover patch and moved 0.9 miles away from it and from the roadless area she’s been using the last couple weeks. We’ll see what’s next on her agenda.
The petition to make the black bear Minnesota’s state mammal is at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/BlackBear-MNState-Mammal/.
The place to leave a comment for protection of radio-collared bears on T. R.’s Facebook page is at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-Minnesotas-Research-Bears/160331730697185. T. R. will pass your comments to officials.
Minnesota residents who would like to get their legislators on board for the next legislative session, almost a year away, can find your local legislators at http://www.gis.leg.mn/OpenLayers/districts/.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center