Lily helps Faith lick off condensed milk - April 22, 2012Lily’s GPS location early this morning showed her to be near a forest road. Time to strike. Lily and Faith will be splitting in a few weeks. Sue and Jim Stroner headed out, leaving Lynn to work on a scientific paper for publication. Faith wasn’t excited about getting a collar that is a junior version of her mom’s. But when Jim pulled back on the bowl of sweetened condensed milk, Faith had to use both paws to hold onto the bowl and she forgot about what Sue was putting around her neck. Not bad for her first collar. It might have helped that the collar is the one Hope wore briefly and might have lingering scent. We figured if any bear deserved to wear Hope’s old collar it was her little sister Faith.
Cautious Cookie - April 22, 2012Next, it was a tiring walk over rough terrain for Jim, Sue, and Ted Parvu to reach Cookie to change her GPS batteries. It took extra time for Cookie to decide to trust them and approach. It was Ted’s first time removing the GPS unit from its case, replacing the batteries, turning it on, returning it to the case, and securing the zippers and protective flap. He succeeded. Mission accomplished.
Large-leafed aster breaks ground - April 22, 2012New bear foods are coming up—large-leafed aster (Aster macrophyllus) and purple peavine (Lathyrus venosus)—both top bear foods in early spring. The large-leafed aster will be a major food for a couple weeks. Once it gets past the hairy, furled stage, bears will ignore the maturing leaves. Peavine leaves are important when they are just coming up, as now, but can be the staple bears fall back on in summer if berries and ant pupae are scarce.
Peavine breaks ground - April 22, 2012Why do we include the scientific names? Common names vary from region to region and especially from continent to continent. Our Lily friends in Europe have asked that we include them so everyone can be sure what we mean.
We again thank the anonymous family for the significant $400,000 start they are giving for the much-needed Education Building. Will it be possible to raise the remaining $500,000 for this one and only addition to the Bear Center? We’re checking loan possibilities but hope to avoid that in order to put everything possible directly and quickly into education. More on all of that coming up.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center