As shooting hours come to a close on this 6th day of September, all the radio-collared bears are safe.
We checked in on Braveheart and her 3 cubs to adjust her radio-collar. She was lethargic. She didn’t even bother to get up as Sue gave her a handful of nuts one at a time so she would hold still for Lynn to loosen the collar a notch. We don’t let the lethargy fool us, though. She is one of the latest bears to den when she has cubs. Two years ago, she dropped her collar on October 19, still active. Her heartrate today was about 80/min, which is not that slowed down. She will likely remain active through the hunting season which closes October 16, so we hope hunters will be able to see the ribbons and plastic attached to her radio-collar and to her GPS unit that sends her location to the research computer every 10 minutes.
We thank T. R. Michels for his support at http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/blogs/michels.html.
Thank you so much to all the participants in the Pond Chat fundraiser that raised $2,030 to reduce Bear Center debt to $29,115! Every dollar of debt reduction has us looking forward to improvements to come for the Bear Center.
Thank you also to all the participants who gave $890 in Round 1 of Team Bear’s fundraiser for the Wildlife Research Institute. Team Bear will hold a fundraiser each weekend from 11 AM Friday until 11 AM Sunday throughout the bear hunting season which ends Sunday October 16. Many thanks for the help for the research and for the daily food people are scheduling through Team Bear. The volunteers are working hard and long hours to monitor the bears. They and we appreciate your help very much.
Tonight is the last night of voting for Soudan Underground Mine State Park at http://www.livepositively.com/#/americasparks/leaderboard. We know there is a group of Lily fans who have worked like Trojans night and day to keep us in 2nd place. They have come together for the bears. Old fans and new have combined to show how much Lily fans want to help the area where the radio-collared bears live. Thank you for this show of support for the bears and where they live. With not much more than 2 hours of voting left to go, you/they have us solidly in 2nd place over 1,098,000 votes ahead of 3rd place. This has been a long and grueling effort to secure $50,000 for the state park which several of the research bears frequent.
Another video of Lily and family taken on Sept 1 is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfG6jy1ZhmM.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center