Aster with her new collar - April 13, 2012On this Friday the 13th, things couldn’t have gone better. We wondered if Aster would accept a collar to continue the saga of how June and her offspring share the land. For reasons we don’t fully understand, Aster was much easier to collar today than Jewel was Wednesday. We have spent very little time with Aster but the collar went on easily. She opened the door to a new chapter in the story of how the clan functions.
June next to her freshly dug out old den - April 13, 2012Then we checked June’s old den where June, Aster, and Aspen have spent the last few days foraging. We wondered if they had stopped by their old den at this time of year when bears would usually still be in dens buried in snow. Yes they had. They raked out the old bedding from last year for one thing. Aster went into the den while we were there. Could raking out the bedding be a sign they plan to use the den again in the future?
Aspen - April 13, 2012Until now, June and her yearlings have remained in a smaller area than is being used by Jo and Victoria. While Jo and Victoria have moved nearly 3 miles from their den and have covered nearly 3 square miles in their roaming, June and her 2 yearlings have remained in an area of about a quarter of a square mile—only about a twelfth the area Jo and Victoria covered. Meanwhile, Lily has felt free to explore June’s territory. Today, June started changing that. She is now ¾ of a mile from her den and heading out. We’ll be watching their GPS locations for any encounters and hope to be on the scene to witness it as we did last year. How bears maintain territories is one of the mysteries.
The Northland News Center update on Jewel, Herbie, and Fern is at http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/iron-range/Jewels-Cubs-are-Walking-Climbing-Fresh-out-of-Hibernation--147248095.html Soon after the interview about Jewel being likely to leave the den soon, they left. We’re leaving the Den Cam up for awhile this time after learning a lesson with Lily and Faith. Maybe Jewel will revisit the den, too.
Another couple videos of ‘Wednesday with Jewel and cubs' are posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf9N3H1AMdw and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug484b6JGsw.
Northern Lights - April 12, 2012More on volunteers. Team Forward is the volunteer group that conducted the survey last year that led to so many good suggestions from Lily Fans and so much change as we put the suggestions into use. They are at it again. They are working with educators to design a survey of teachers who follow the Den Cams and updates to learn how they are using the Online Curriculum and Resources on bear.org and what we can do better. The Resources Button is under Education Outreach and has PowerPoint Presentations, Videos, etc. The survey and the suggestions from teachers will likely take the Education Outreach to a new level.
Team Forward is doing another nice thing. They organized a little birthday celebration for the Bearman tomorrow at 1 PM at the Bear Center. Everyone is welcome—no gifts, no nothing, just people. Team Forward is bringing the cake.
After Lynn left for home last night he called back to the field station to let us know there were northern lights. We stepped out to watch and photograph (...remember how late the update was last night? Now you know why!), but Lynn got the best picture!
All we can say is, Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center