June 'bedecked' - Aug 30, 2012 June led us and the Minnesota Public Radio team on a long walk through the woods today as we pursued her to add decorations to her radio-collar. She finally heard “It’s me bear” from both Lynn and Sue and began circling to make sure. We could see her as she made a final check of our back trail, sniffing the vegetation we had brushed past. The senses of bears are so very keen. We felt honored that she wouldn’t come up to just anybody.
June with reflective plastic strips - Aug 30, 2012This is June’s typical behavior, confirming what local hikers have told us—that in their years of hiking 3-5 miles a day in June and other bears’ territories they seldom have seen a bear and didn’t have any trouble with them. Once June confirmed that we were legitimate, she came confidently. Lynn lay down and offered nuts while Sue went to work adding stiff plastic strips to the top of her radio-collar. The first picture shows how June would look to a hunter looking down from a tree stand. The second picture shows how the reflective strip in the plastic shines like a beacon when reflecting light. We feel that there can be no doubt that she is a radio-collared bear when any hunter sees her. In fact, even without the new strips, her old ribbons were visible through the brush even before we could identify her as a bear.
Mallards at dawn - Aug 30, 2012We then took her heart rate which again was only 70/minute. With a little luck, June could be in a den or settling near one in a week. She checked out Lily and Faith’s den of this past winter again today. We wondered if she went into it. An hour after she left there and headed south, we started trying to catch up to her. We covered ground as fast as we could, hoping to catch up to her in her favorite raspberry patch 0.4 mile south. No chance. She got to the patch and kept going. The raspberries are gone. She continued south toward another raspberry patch a mile farther on. We continued after her. Another 0.4 mile south, we were close enough for her to hear our voices on this windless day, and she held up as described above.
We were happy on the walk back to have some rain on this sweltering day.
Mallard at dawn - Aug 30, 2012The day started with rain. The old saying “It’s a good day for ducks” came to mind, and that’s what we saw at dawn on the way to the Research Center. We couldn’t help stopping to snap a picture.
We don’t know when the MPR interview from today will air.
As we write this, we're thinking about all the mods and other volunteers that are working to spread the word about what the bears have shown us—what they are really like. We've met Lily Fans at the Bear Center lately and been reminded about all that you do. We always feel grateful and energized after talking with Lily Fans.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center