Ted enjoys a showerCharlie Russell has been accompanying Mike and Lorie to see firsthand their work with the study bears. Yesterday, the drive was long, but they very easily connected with Faith to swap out her GPS unit. They made it look easy—too easy. Today, Charlie got to see the other side of our fieldwork.
Mike and Charlie—soakedThis morning, Lily hadn’t broadcast a GPS location for 3 hours. Mike and Lorie got right on it. They found her telemetry signal and homed in walking fast through the woods. They wanted to replace her GPS unit before the thunderstorm hit. The sky was dark. Thunder was rolling in the distance. The wind was coming up. Their telemetry receiver indicated they were nearly within sight of Lily. Then it rained as hard as we’ve ever seen, disabling the telemetry receiver. They called through the thunder, hoping Lily would come. She didn’t. Mike, Lorie, and Charlie came back to the Research Center drenched with no bear connection to make it worthwhile. They have worked with Lily many times now, but circumstances this time were different enough that caution took precedent over trust.
Campers radio-track 'Marbles'Compare Lily’s behavior to the trust shown by Dot in a familiar situation after the storm passed. It was time to change her GPS batteries. A research associate watched Dot’s locations on her computer as Dot approached a familiar feeding station. The petite woman in her mid 70’s got batteries ready and was at the feeding station when Dot arrived. Dot immediately recognized her and her voice and came directly to her. Then Dot followed her to the feeder and lay down next to her, calm as usual. The woman unzipped the GPS pouch, removed the GPS unit, dried it off, changed the batteries, slid it back in, and secured the pouch. It was all a familiar routine for Dot with this woman. The woman said, “What a gentle bear she is—just Dot and I alone together.”
She also said, “She has certainly put on the miles the last few days. I did get worried when she was near the campground.” Being able to track the bears’ GPS locations on our computers can be worrisome at times.
Campers follow Marbles' signalDot has been habituated to people and fed by some for 13 years—her whole life. By now, many would predict she would connect people to food. She would know that good campfire cooking with human voices means a buffet. Conventional thought would have her crashing the party and being a nuisance.
So what did Dot do at the campground? She crossed the road and circumvented the campground. Why? We’re still learning. At this point, we still just watch, record, learn—and wonder. Explaining is harder. We see similar behavior with June, the bear we’ve spent more time with than any other. To our knowledge, she has never entered the Bear Head Lake State Park Campground in her territory.
Being able to track Dot’s GPS locations solved a mystery for us this spring. For the first time ever, Dot triggered a complaint record—and it was no ordinary complaint. It was a serious complaint—an attempted break-in. Generally it’s desperate bears that break-in, and Dot knows where she can go for food if she needs. We looked into the complaint further.
Campers find Marbles outside her denOnce we learned the date and time (3:00 AM) of the attempted break-in, we checked Dot’s GPS locations. She had spent the entire night beside a familiar white pine (to her and to us) with her yearlings over 3 miles from the site of the complaint. She was there from 10:11 the evening before until 6:21 that morning. She could not have been the bear generating the break-in complaint.
Dot then triggered another complaint. The complaint was not for something she did—but rather for something she didn’t do. She didn’t run away.
Dot and her yearlings were eating grass beside a highway. A hiker about 50 yards away on the highway spotted her and clapped his hands. Dot stood up to better identify the source of the noise, saw a non-threatening person, and went back to eating grass. The man flagged down a car to drive him past the bear.
Ted in his new tubDid that mean Dot was a danger? The danger from bears is perceived differently by each person. One thing these fed and human-tolerant bears show us year after year is that their behavior is far from what most people would guess and that most of the of bears that are killed nationwide for being human-tolerant were likely not the threats they were thought to be.
At the Bear Center today, Ted enjoyed one of the new water tubs bought for their enclosures.
Also at the Bear Center, it was the first day of Camp Bear Paw where kids get out and learn about bears and the forest. A joy for everyone.
We've been scanning the video footage of June and her cubs taken by Jim Stroner on June 16. We tried to sex the cubs but aren't quite sure yet. What do you think? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7DehyI1_Qs.
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.