Lily and Faith play - March 5, 2012It’s a joy to see Lily and Faith play like they do. The two have played together more in the den than we saw all last year. We believe the mother-daughter bond has grown immensely as Lily and Faith snuggled, nursed, and played.
Jewel and cubs - March 5, 2012We wondered how common play was in dens. We wondered if Hope’s play last year was unusual. Then we saw Lucky and Ted play last winter as they had played the summer before. We also see the lack of play between Lucky and Honey who had a wary and untrusting relationship last summer. Finally, we saw the increasing play between Lily and Faith and believe it is a sign of a strengthening mother-daughter bond. Who says animals don’t have feelings.
Jewel and cub - March 5, 2012
Lynx tracks - March 5, 2012Jewel’s cubs, Herbie and Fern, are growing by leaps and bounds. We got a good look at them today when Jewel was ‘making’ her bed. She gently pushed them out of the way—and towards the camera! They staggered around for a bit then headed back toward Jewel. We noticed today that Jewel was attempting to pick up the cubs by pinching their fur between her incisors. She succeeded for a few seconds before the cub slipped from her grasp. We will see more and more of this behavior in the days to come.
Lynx track - March 5, 2012Last night, a neighbor called to say he had just seen a lynx—a rare sighting! Today, the lynx tracks along the road were obscured by vehicle tracks, but we found one fairly clear lynx track where it had first come down a steep bank onto the road. We also found a nice trail of tracks where it had left the road and continued west.
A video of yesterday’s highlights in Jewel’s den is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhD1qyvc6_8.
Congratulations to Dana Coleman's students who have been given a legislative hearing date of March 12th for their proposal to have the black bear declared the Minnesota State Mammal!
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center