Lily and Faith - April 6, 2012Activity is increasing. Jewel and cubs spent the day in and out of the den. Juliet is still at her bed of the past few days. Her cubs are now climbing as high as 12 feet. Dot’s GPS locations showed she roamed up to 0.2 mile from her den, moving too fast to have the cubs with her. At the end of the day, she was back at the den. Is she exploring where she might want to move the cubs to? We’ll see if any of the places she visited today are her next bed.
Lily and Faith are now a mile from their den, exploring into the heart of June’s (Lily’s mother) territory. June and her yearlings Aster and Aspen were still only 365 yards from their den, so they were unaware of the intrusion. We’ll see if the area becomes an area of contention.
Wild calla munched by Lily and Faith - April 6, 2012As luck would have it, connecting with Lily required a 1.8 mile walk for Sue Mansfield, Jim Stroner, and a BBC cameraman. They had to catch up to Lily because Sue discovered yesterday that a nut on Lily’s collar was within a couple turns of coming off. They caught up to her, fixed the collar, spent the rest of the morning walking with her and Faith, and were worn out for the rest of the day. They observed Lily and Faith foraging on wild calla lily stems and willow catkins.
Jo and Victoria moved over a mile to an area they used a lot last summer.
More on the volunteers. Although not officially called volunteers, we will never forget the time so many Lily Fans volunteered in the voting efforts that accomplished so much. People put in uncounted hours (thousands) to accomplish so much for the area where Lily and her clan live. Newspaper and TV coverage of their efforts showed the value of the research bears to the area, and that should help the bears and the research continue. Thank you! It is harder to find voting contests of that sort lately, but you all have accomplished so much already.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center