Lily and cubs on top of den The day has come, and it was a long one. Lily tried over and over to lead the cubs away but they were reluctant. She grunted her nicest sounds to them. Her many to trips to and from the den wore a path. Nursing was minimized—a strategy often used by mother bears to elicit cooperation from cubs.
Lily checks out sapling cubs play atFinally at 4:10 PM CDT—on Lily's 22nd attempt of the day—the hungry, frisky cubs had no choice but to follow mom. However, they still couldn’t resist trying new things on the way—stopping to bat at a white pine seedling, climbing aspen saplings that toppled under their weight, and even checking out the stand the PTZ camera is mounted on.
Cubs begin to follow LilyWhen they came to their first sizeable tree, they both easily and expertly climbed it, even though it was a birch (we believe and will check), which is not the easiest tree for cubs to climb with its smooth bark. Up and down again several times without hesitation. The strength and skills they acquired at the den paid off.
Cubs getting braverLily was at the den 7 months, 1 week, and 4 days. The cubs were 101 days old, which is 33 days older than Hope was (68 days old) when she left the den with Lily on March 30, 2010. Watch the video of Lily and her cubs moving away from the den at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb5bgWQRBU4.
Cubs play with sapling white pineTomorrow we hope to visit the family and give Lily a GPS unit to track her movements. We’re wondering how it will be to meet the cubs. We feel like we know them although we’ve never seen them except on the computer screen. We will be complete strangers to them. From the way they climbed the birch and the white pine they stopped at briefly, we believe they will be high in a white pine and not likely to really meet us for some time.
Cub climbs sapling aspenIt was a great bonus that the den was in an opening where the PTZ camera could reveal their movements and hesitation and agility like never before. A big thank you to Linda Gibson for staying right on top of the PTZ camera until the family disappeared. With her Panning and Zooming, it’s like she was reading our minds about what we wanted to see next. We know it’s intense work requiring concentration—and we are grateful for her dedication.
Lily says "Not this tree!" as cubs climb first tree they come to—a birchWe looked up the amount of time spent at a den by the bear that left a den the latest of any we can remember—May 9, 1972, for Female 425. Lily beat her. Lily arrived at this den on September 10, but 425 didn’t start denning until between October 2 and 6. That was back in the days before GPS when we’d obtain telemetry data only as often as we could afford to fly. Today, GPS (Global Positioning System) sends data via satellite to Google Earth on our computers every 10 minutes.
Surprisingly, Jewel, Fern, and Herbie are still at their den. With those big mobile yearlings, we thought Jewel’s family would be the first to go.
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.