Jewel nuzzles cub - Jan 6, 2013 Can Lily Fans be fooled? Today, we saw a link to a video of a “terrifying” encounter with a polar bear at http://tinyurl.com/Polar-Bear-Family-Me. It shows our friend Gordon Buchanan advertising a new BBC documentary series ‘My Polar Bear Family and Me’ to air soon. Is the bear terrifying? Is it behaving in a threatening way? Or is it a curious bear that simply found a novel object on the monotonous frozen landscape and investigated it—like we see Ted, Lucky, Honey, and others do routinely—like Lily, Jewel, and their families have done with previous Den Cams.
Lily covers nose with paw as she sleeps - Jan 6, 2013This morning, Lily rearranged her bedding with gusto—dust and wood chips flying. Unfortunately, her Den Cam went down shortly afterwards and has been down since. A key technician is out of contact. A technician in Pennsylvania did what he could from there, but it’s still down. Meanwhile, Den-Watchers around the world are unable to record data. There will be times like this. The main thing is data is streaming most of the time. Hopefully the kinks will be worked out before Lily gives birth in a couple weeks.
Jewel - Jan 6, 2013Jewel and cubs mostly slept except for occasional nursing sessions. The cubs bawl to nurse, and Jewel eventually accommodates—although we believe there is little or no milk. We believe that because the area around the nipples is not swollen and because mothers with yearlings lose weight at the rate of non-lactating bears and not at the rate of lactating mothers.
A video of Jewel and her cubs from a few days ago is posted at http://www.youtube.com/
Jewel rubs face with paw - Jan 6, 2013The Den-Watch Team is growing thanks to you. A big “Thank You!” to all who responded to the need for additional Den-Watchers by filling out Volunteer Applications at http://www.bear.org/website/volunteer.html (scroll down on that page to the link to the form). More may be needed, but the Den-Watch Data Recording Team now has 115 members located in the USA, UK, Canada, India, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.
Again, thank you for your continued donations and memberships in response to the offer of a free, signed (by us) Research Bear “Shadow’s Clan” Calendar and a Ted, Lucky, and Honey Calendar at http://www.bear.org/website/gift-shop.html. Today, you broke another thousand on the Lily Hope Center thermometer, edging the building fund over the $635,000 mark.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center