Community support for research! - Sept 4, 2012 Week days don’t have the hunting pressure that Labor Day and weekends do. The woods were quiet today.
The volunteer crew got a lot done here, trying to save the collapsing garage and monitoring yearlings Faith, Aster, and Daisy. All seems well. Along the way, volunteers spied a radio-collared bear they didn’t recognize. They even backed up for a second look. Its collar was decorated with ribbons. Their photo shows support for the research shown by some Eagles Nest residents.
Hail from today's storm - Sept 4, 2012We are proud to live in this community. As we have said before, the knowledge of bears and the love of wildlife we find in this community that has fed bears for over a half century makes it a world treasure. We wish the attitude demonstrated by most of the residents would become the attitude worldwide, and through Lily, Hope, and their fans, we’re making strides.
Sue's car - Sept 4, 2012Two phone calls were interesting. One was about a treed bear in Bedford Heights, Ohio. Wildlife officials were pummeling it with a high pressure stream of water from a fire hose to get it to come down. It seemed counter intuitive to us to further scare a bear that had taken refuge in the tree because it was scared, and we wondered why they would want it to come down in daytime in the city. We called the officials to see if there was a better way. We learned they had stopped squirting the bear when they saw it wasn’t working. At least they hadn’t simply shot the bear.
Lynn's van - Sept 4, 2012Another call was a news service looking for comments about how a drought in Colorado was affecting the bears and what might be the future for bears with global warming. The reporter will send a link when the article comes out. Regarding the problem of nuisance bears in years of drought and drastic failures of wild food crops, we sent links to published papers and a PowerPoint. We directed the reporter to www.bearstudy.org to see publication 128 (the narrated PowerPoint presentation entitled “Can Food Lead Bears Out of Trouble?), 126 (the peer-reviewed paper on diversionary feeding), 13 (a 1976 paper on natural food shortage causing nuisance problems), and 125 (an invited commentary that refutes some misconceptions). To see any of them, go to bearstudy.org, hover on the “Publications” tab, see the dropdown box and click on “Published Papers,” see the list of topics and click on “Black Bear,” and scroll down the list that comes up. Click on any highlighted title to view a PDF of the complete publication. The PowerPoint pres
Hail from today's storm - Sept 4, 2012entation is 18 minutes, narrated by Lynn, and provides a summary of data from decades of research. It is all just common sense, but it differs from the views of many officials.
Late afternoon, a violent wind and hail storm hit. Rain and hail were falling (?) horizontally—propelled by the strong wind. We considered retreating to the first floor in case the big white pines around the Research Center came down, but the hundred-year-old trees proved to be resilient yet again. The wind brought down needles that stuck to our vehicles and camouflaged them (see photos). Then the lake grew calm, the sun and clouds became beautiful, and food provided by Lily Fans arrived for supper. Thank you for being part of the work here.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center