Lily and Faith - Sept 28, 2011
Lily’s breasts have shrunk greatly, and she’s refusing to nurse Faith. Instead, she played with Faith to distract her from nursing. When a previous mother did this, the family was already creating a den. What Lily and Faith do in the next few days will help put this into perspective.
Braveheart’s breasts have also shrunk and her heart rate is very irregular, with pauses, totaling only 60 beats per minute. She’s definitely slowing down, although her cubs are still vigorous, as is Faith.
Jo and Victoria - Sept 28, 2011Jo investigated dens today in the area where last year she squeezed in and out of a den and scraped off a patch of hair from her back. She crawled in and out of 2 dens there today. She and little Victoria also raided a hornet nest in the base of a cedar tree.
Dot in den - Sept 28, 2011Dot is in a den where she has been since the evening of Sept 17th. She has raked in a lot of soft bedding for when she gives birth.
Lily did something during the night that moved us to tears. She went on a tear, moving miles in such a short time that she must have been running most of the time. She covered much of her territory and beyond before returning to her starting place where she probably had left Faith. We have never seen anything like this before. The only explanation we can think of is the obvious one, given recent circumstances. What must be going through her mind? We wish we had been there to see it in person—to see if she was grunting and tongue-clicking as mothers do when they look for lost cubs. Lily had spent an unusually long time mothering Hope. Was this a last search before she gives up and settles into a den? Although we questioned whether the GPS locations were possible, they followed in a line that was not erratic.
This is an emotional time for all of us. The loss is so great. We see your posts. We hear your tears on the phone. It is a time of coming together. Not everyone is sympathetic, though. A radio talk show host was reading your comments over the air today with a derisive tone. Reporters are reading your comments, too but usually reporting them with more sensitivity as in these few examples of many.
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/210488/group/Sports/
http://m.startribune.com/local/?id=130668473&c=y
http://wjon.com/researcher-hope-famed-internet-bear-is-dead/
Lynn & Donna Rogers in front of their house in Ely, MNThe last couple days the colors have become spectacular. Some leaves are dried out from the drought. Others have full color. When Lynn left the clinic he stopped home for lunch and a picture of him and Donna enjoying the colors in their front yard.The abrupt departure of 4 mods has left Lily’s page short-handed. We can’t fill in for them and still protect the remaining bears, change GPS batteries, and monitor behavior as we did part of today. Lynn also ran to town for a routine echocardiogram (no real problem). We fear we may need to make major changes to Lily’s Facebook page to give us time to regroup.
Kawishiwi Falls
We can’t thank you enough for the support we have felt from most of you these past days.
We’re considering setting up a “Hope Foundation” or “Hope Fund” to provide scholarships for students going into fields that would be appropriate to support in Hope’s name. Just a thought at this point. We have long wanted a scholarship fund like that, and making it the “Hope Fund” or a similar Hope name somehow seems a way for Lily fans to commemorate Hope and show the community yet another way the research bears benefit the area.
Video footage of Lily and Faith bathing in a wallow is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6BUhbvKAY0.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center