Lily rests after raking - Dec 29, 2012Lily’s and Jewel’s Den Cams are live and teaching! Both bears became active about the same time this afternoon.
The links to the Den Cams are http://www.bear.org/website/live-cameras/live-cameras/lilys-den-cam.html and http://www.bear.org/website/live-cameras/live-cameras/jewels-den-cam.html.
Lily was chewing sticks and spitting out the chips as bedding. Unlike other bears, she hasn’t raked any grass into the den. She got the bedding entirely from inside the brush pile. We didn’t realize bears were versatile in that way. Usually, evidence of raking is a sure sign of a den nearby. Anyone walking by that brush pile this past fall would never guess there was a bear denned inside.
Lily chews a branch - Dec 29, 2012Jewel nursed Fern and Herbie, giving us yet another example of year-old cubs suckling in the den—something we didn’t know before these Den Cams.
Lily shreds chunk of wood - Dec 29, 2012Actually, we marvel every time we watch the Den Cams. We are peering into the least known half of black bear life. Before the Den Cams, the only way to see denning behavior was to look into a den and see a disturbed bear reacting to a person. Finally, after 45 years of bear study, the mysteries of their hidden world are being revealed to us all together.
Lily shreds a stick - Dec 29, 2012At this moment, Jewel, Fern, and Herbie are sleeping, and the picture is detailed enough to see that Jewel is breathing 4 times a minute. We need to clip the bright root and zoom the camera a bit on her to see more detail.
Lily reaches far for wood chips - Dec 29, 2012For Lily, we need to aim it up and to the right a bit. Eventually, we’ll have everything tweaked for optimum data collection. We then will hope for long periods of staying away to obtain the most undisturbed data possible. Dust on the lens is the most likely problem in Jewel’s dusty den. General visibility is the most likely problem in Lily’s den given the low angle of the Den Cam necessary there.
Lily rakes wood chips - Dec 29, 2012The Technology Team, both here and in South Africa, is watching the upload rate for consistency to see about possibly improving the quality of the picture still more. Peter Bratt of WildEarth.TV worked all night in South Africa, and Ted Parvu worked all day. As we cheered here in Ely, we were thinking “Thank you” to everyone who made this happen.
Meanwhile, Dr. Janet Dalton and Biologist Lynne Cann are working with the Lily Fan Den-Watchers to begin data collection.
Media Relations Leader Bev Hauptli and Executive Director Nadine Long are working to get the word out.
Everything is coming together.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center