For their walk yesterday, Lynn and Donna went to Donna Bear’s den and gave her a radio-collar.
As they continued their walk, they looked at rocks to identify and put in the bear foods garden in front of the Bear Center. They took some with them, including Jasper and Ely Greenstone. A big orange rock too big to lift was one they didn’t know. It’s pictured here in case a Lily fan knows.
Lynn and Donna talked about goals. Not every goal is achieved quickly, but three things gave them encouragement.
One thing was seeing a clear-cut with its white pines still standing. Those trees now can live hundreds of years, grow large, and provide unique ecological values to the landscape. Seeing those trees reminded Lynn and Donna of one of the worst times in their lives when they’d taken a chance and brought up the issue of saving the last 2 percent of Minnesota’s white pines some 20 years ago. Cutting the last of these trees was what would have brought profit to timber sales that otherwise would be sold at a loss or not cut at all. But it seemed to Lynn that the state’s last 2% of these trees should be managed sustainably and allowed to provide ecological benefits to the many species of wildlife that depended upon them. But the economic ramifications of managing white pines sustainably was beyond what the managing agencies were willing to accept. Retaliation against Lynn was vicious. He retired from the US Forest Service and formed the White Pine Society. Eventually, the media, the legislature, the public, and the environmental groups of the region got behind the effort. With that kind of pressure, the agencies ended up doing what they had so viciously resisted. Lynn was without a job, but he knew he’d done the right thing. The real reward for Donna and Lynn was seeing the change in white pine management from a plan that would have eliminated 86% of the remaining white pines to a plan that spares them and works to regenerate them. One of the people who got behind the new plan was DNR Commissioner Allen Garber who was appointed in 1999 by Governor Jesse Ventura. Their good mark on Minnesota continues to be seen.
Another thing was talking to people through the day and hearing a returning student from Peru say she couldn’t believe it when a fellow student there did a report on the North American Bear Center and the bear research being done in Ely, Minnesota. A coincidence was that the returning student just happens to be the daughter of the City Attorney who made the arrangements for the North American Bear Center to get the prime piece of land where the Center sits today. Another person told of visiting a place near Yellowstone that had a big bear exhibit that Lynn helped create some 20 years ago. Lynn supplied most of the video, pictures, and information for the black bear portion of the exhibit. Another said that Lynn’s traveling bear exhibit named “The Hidden World of Bears” that is managed by the University of Minnesota’s Museum of Natural History is scheduled to go to two new locations in Colorado and Minnesota. It made them feel that good information is getting out.
The third thing was the feeling of support Lynn and Donna get from Lily fans and how together the group will make good things happen for bear education.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center