Cub slides off Lily as Lily eats snowWe’re looking for data closer to home, but according to the Chisholm/Hibbing Airport an hour away, we have likely already passed the April snow record of 15.5 inches. Yesterday at 5 PM, they showed 14.1 inches. If the numbers apply here, several inches we got overnight and today will set a new record, making it interesting to see what the bears do. Lily and Jewel are still in their dens, and we haven’t heard of any local sightings.
Ellie inspects dirty camera lensUsually, by now, we’d have had a spell of 50’s F with temperatures remaining above freezing overnight. Snow disappears fast under those conditions. Nothing like that this year. For example, the average high for this date for Ely is 58F with a range of 30 to 87F. It was barely above freezing today and snowing so hard much of the day that we could hardly see across Woods Lake out the window. Spring is getting a late start.
Ellie inspects her cleaning jobThat led a Lily Fan to ask: Since Jewel is leaving the den ‘later’ than normal, will this delay family breakup? And, if mating occurs at the ‘normal’ time, will leaving the den later than usual give her enough time before mating to fatten enough to sustain a pregnancy? Lily Fans ask hard questions. The real answer is: “We’ll have to wait and see what the bears show us.”
Lily bites branchTo talk around the answer, we can say the ground is getting a late start thawing out so emerging plants that bears eat as spring foods will likely appear later than usual. We’ll see what temperatures do in the next couple weeks. Right now, it doesn’t make much difference if the bears are in or out of their dens because there would be little to eat anyway.
EliGreen-up starts in earnest in May. We’ll have to see about family breakup. Since this is a year of record April snow, we don’t have anything to compare it to. 
Ellie the lens cleaner! Thank you! We think things will ‘normal out’ by the usual time of family breakup in late May and early June. We think the female’s weight at conception is not as important as her fall weight since the blastocysts don’t implant and start to develop until then.
Ellie did us all a favor. She used her little tongue to clean Lily’s Den Cam lens. Most of the blur is gone. Maybe she knew we’d be watching awhile yet. Thank you, Ellie!
Lily and EllieAn email we received today gave some background on the Duluth bear we posted pictures of. Mike Furtman wrote:
“Lynn, been awhile since we’ve had contact. I hope all is well with you. I have a large male bear that I’ve been photographing now for about ten years. He is an entirely urban bear, living in Duluth. It occurred to me that he’s a very good example of bears living among people, and that you might be interested in him. 
Lily's cubs - Eli and EllieWhen I first “met” him a decade ago, he was already an adult, so he’s managed to stay below the radar and live within the city without causing problems sufficient that the authorities would have to deal with him for many, many years. And its also an example of people willing to live with bears. He hibernated off the lakewalk just a few yards, in a culvert. He came out three weeks ago when a rain flooded his den. He then made a nest adjacent to the lakewalk. 
LilyJoggers and dog walkers have by the hundreds pass by him within yards, and they admire him, but have left him alone. And he pretty much ignores them. I do hope, though, that he moves on soon before some idiot approaches him. In any case, I’ve named him Bert. I know it is always the same bear because of a slit in his right ear which makes him readily identifiable. I shot some HD video of him the other day, as well as stills, and posted them to my FB page. I thought you might be interested in seeing this urban bear.
Here are some links:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10200575037711728&l=7023810598632911631 and another: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10200569456452200&l=7891328504148813686
[Photo link:]
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10200569395610679.1073741844.1032557688&type=1&l=4c9b6815ac
Feel free to share these links if you’d like! Good luck with your work. Mike"
Lily's cubs on top of the denThe links to the videos and photos may not work for everyone, but we wanted to include them for those who can access them. The link to the Part II video of Lily and cubs from yesterday is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-PcLjUY4w8.
There are 3 videos of today's activities at Lily's den; Part I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzmW9Dl0fLg, Part II http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttq_A9dGriw, and Part III which will be available later at http://www.youtube.com/bearstudy.
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.