Lily keeps eye on a rambunctious cubWell, Honey at least. Today she spent 6-7 hours away from any den and off in the woods out of sight. Ted and Lucky were content to stay in their dens.
Jewel and yearlings outside denOut in the wild woods, Jewel and her yearlings were in and out on this nearly 40F day. It was nice to see them come out so we could view them with the PTZ camera and not the inside Den Cam that has inexplicably turned purple in addition to being blurred by curious licks. It’s okay, though, we can still see enough to tell what they are doing in the den. Leaving the camera smudged and purple is preferable to going out there and then wondering if what happened next, possibly leaving, was prompted by us.
Big mouth...little mouthOutside Lily’s den, Eli won the race climbing to the top of the den and was the first back down and inside to nurse. Ellie was not far behind. Lily busied herself inside, eating snow and licking ice from the sounds of it.
Lily looks out as cubs climb on denThen, about 7:45 PM, the cubs put on a wonderful athletic, energy-packed show as the light faded. They climbed higher on the outside of the den than ever before. The brush pile is their very own jungle-gym. They played with each other as they teetered on the branches. 
The daily chin-up routineThe commotion was more than Lily could bear. She came out but paid no attention to the cubs. She focused her ears off into the distance, just like we see when we’re with bears. Somehow, despite our sounds nearby, they pick up tiny distant sounds and focus on them with their parabolic ears. If they even turn an ear toward us, we wonder why.
Americorps volunteers clean storeroomThere was action inside the North American Bear Center, too. The place was alive with Americorp volunteers happily cleaning the taxidermy and rearranging the inventory storeroom. We were happy for the help and they were happy for the opportunity to work to help fulfill an Americorp requirement.
Americorps volunteer cleans taxidermyThe many close guesses on the Ted-Honey-Lucky bear weights showed how knowledgeable Lily Fans are. Congratulations again to the winners.
The reason for Lucky’s lower rate of weight loss may be more than just his snugger den. His physiology likely differs from Ted’s and Honey’s. Coming from Wisconsin, he may be genetically programmed for the longer northern winters, complete with the ability to reduce his metabolism further in order to better ration his fat over a longer period. He had access to the same food as Ted and Honey, but he settled into his den a month earlier. 
Judy Thon and Americorps volunteersWithout the disturbance of having a denmate like Honey (winter 2012) or Ted (2011), Lucky apparently settled down more this year. His daily rate of percentage loss was only 0.102% of this bodyweight compared to 0.148% when he denned with Ted two winters ago. No fall weight was obtained for Lucky the year he denned with Honey so we have no comparison.
Ma, look what I can do!This morning, Lucky still looked lethargic in his den despite being activite a couple days ago. He stayed in his den all day while Honey was off in the woods. It may be that Honey’s genes are from a region where winters are shorter—thus her tendency to settle down later in fall and begin exploring earlier in spring. 
Big feet, little bum!Whatever the reason, we were impressed that Lucky was in his den a month longer than the others and lost a lower percentage of his weight.
Ellie gets 'attention' from Lily and EliLily is the champion, though, when it comes to duration of denning. In 3 days, she will have been in or at her den for 7 months. Her GPS unit showed that she arrived there about 12:30 PM on September 10, 2012. Pregnant females are the first to den up.
Serious cub play!What’s your best guess when Lily, Eli and Ellie will leave their den for good this year? Post your date in the comment section of the #vzwmidwest blog at http://bit.ly/11Vp929.
With yearlings, Jewel denned later than Lily, of course. We found them in their very freshly dug den on October 9, 2012, so they will have spent approximately the usual 6 months in their den if they leave soon.
Videos: The Part III we promised last night is posted at http://youtu.be/MZ4Mrnd7R7c. We have 3 more from today, Part I http://youtu.be/_q99VmXvJ2k, Part II http://youtu.be/OTfoB4JcFvA, and Part III http://youtu.be/pBJyRCFwmOE. We'll create videos from today's PTZ footage...tomorrow.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.