Many people here in Eagles Nest Township like bears, and they show it with their bear ‘yard art.’ Our favorite of these, of course, is the radio-collared bear statue complete with ribbons for hunting season. The people here are the most bear friendly we know. After a half century of feeding bears in this community, people generally like seeing them—especially so since the bears do very little damage. No house break-ins, for example. As we drive around, many people ask how the bears are.
A group of students from Norway, led by professors from Norway and the University of Minnesota, visited the Bear Center today. It was good to see Dr. Ole Sorensen from Norway. In his introduction, he remembered walking with bears with Lynn back in the 1980’s. It was a good day with a lot of good questions from the group.
In Ely, people ask us how the research bears are, but they also ask about Ted, Lucky, and Honey. Looking at them today with the students from Norway, we couldn’t help feeling grateful to the people who gave us Ted and Honey. It also gave us joy to see the bears working away foraging for food like wild bears do. Lynn wished he could introduce each of the students and the professors that were leading them to the bears, but our USDA permit doesn’t allow the public into the enclosure. As a substitute, Lynn took a microphone out to Ted, who obliged with his high-pitched friendly grunts of greeting, licked Lynn’s face, and went back to searching for food. All the bears are already at hibernation weights with 2 months to go before they settle into dens. We’ll have no choice but to let them gain extra weight this year and hope we can control their weights better next year. Too much weight is hard on their joints.
Yesterday, we got a call from a man who lives on the outskirts of Ely, telling us how a bear tipped over his garbage can and defecated on his lawn. Was he mad? No. He collected the scat, looked up our number, and called to see if we wanted it. We did. It was full of apple seeds. Some people have apple trees, which might explain why the bear was drawn to the outskirts of Ely during this time of scarce food in the woods. As we left, the man’s parting words were “Long live the bears!”
At the Bear Center it was good to see a group of Lily Fan volunteers who took the Bear Keeper Course and were there volunteering and having fun. Part of the work was setting up a camera and microphone to stream the groundbreaking to Lily Fans through bear.org.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center