Hopelessly stuck! - Sept 13, 2012 Finding Braveheart took most of the day. Her GPS batteries had expired. Our last location for her was 6:17 AM yesterday. Her radio-signal was faint from all directions and there were no good roads to get us closer. We drove rough 4-wheeler trails in an attempt to get a better signal. Finally we met our match—a trail too rough to drive, too rough to back up on, and—as we found out—too narrow to turn around on. We were stuck. We wondered what an ATV rider would think if they came upon our Ford Econoline van stuck cross-wise in the trail. We soon found out.
Den Braveheart has worked on - Sept 13, 2012As we began our hike out, we heard an ATV approaching. We wondered how to explain why we were walking a trail out in the middle of nowhere. He seemed a bit incredulous as our story came out in dribs and drabs. He just happened to be out clearing trails and was well equipped to help us out of our predicament. As soon as we were headed in the right direction he invited us to his cabin, which just happened to be in the direction of Braveheart’s signal. After a break for pop with him, he led us down a trail from his cabin to the river. Braveheart’s signal was coming from the other side and the river was too deep to cross. We couldn’t “get there from here”—but we had made a new friend who helped us out, quenched our thirst, and told us the best way to get to where we thought Braveheart was.
Braveheart - Sept 13, 2012We headed back around to the other side of the river, parked the van, and hiked in on a decent trail. A mile into the woods, we discovered why Braveheart’s signal was so faint. She was over a steep hill down in a cedar swamp. Her signal was active. Considering how scarce food is, we thought she must be making a den. We lucked out and found the den, but Braveheart had skedaddled.
Sign of raking near den - Sept 13, 2012
Braveheart is a bear that knows our voices but may or may not let us approach. Sometimes she doesn’t even get up when we approach. We can walk right up to her and work on her collar. Other times, she spends an hour circling downwind or circling around to our backtrail or retreating to a big tree to climb. Today, she circled us twice before holding while we approached. Once she was sure, she fully trusted us. We easily changed her GPS batteries and learned that her heart rate was a steady 60/minute, down from her usual 74/minute. The sun was nearly down when we reached the van again.
Bright spot in the woods - Sept 13, 2012We learned that in the last 24 hours she had moved 1.8 miles to the denning site, spent time in the den, raked a lot of grass to the entrance but not into the den, and rested in several mossy beds nearby. The den was the upturned root mass of an old blowdown (photo). The floor of Braveheart’s den was dry and a little higher than the floors in other blowdowns in the area that were wet. We’ll see how dry it is in spring, though, when she has cubs. We remember the problem Juliet had this spring when her similar den flooded and she had to move out before the cubs could walk. But that was a record early spring. Hopefully this coming spring will be more typical.
Hiking out at the end of a long day - Sept 13, 2012The current plan is to not officially name the new addition to the Bear Center. However, the new addition will house the ‘Hope Learning Center’—consisting of the multimedia classroom, the media broadcasting facilities, and for expanding the Educational Outreach. We love calling it the ‘Hope Learning Center’ for what Hope represented and what the letters of her name stand for, which essentially is our mission. If we give the 100-foot addition to the North American Bear Center a separate name at all, we can wait until it is built and paid for. The most important thing is to name the Hope Learning Center which will carry on her legacy.
Lily Fans again came through with dinner for the volunteers here tonight and Donna Rogers joined us. All of us were happy—eating and laughing to end a day of hard work by everyone. Thank you so much.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center