Charlie, Lynn, and ZachAfter Lily proved too hard to reach a couple times lately, we tried to catch up to her today. After we trudged way too far after her, she crossed a river. We chose to follow—hoping it had a solid bottom and wasn’t too deep.
Crossing the riverIt was only chest deep but had a ‘sinky’ bottom that grabbed at shoes. Once we made it to the other side, the dark clouds above dropped their heavy rain—soaking anything that wasn’t already wet from the river crossing!
The young man with us is a KBJR reporter/anchor man Zach Vavricka doing a story for tonight’s Channel 6 news. We hope he comes back after the ordeal we put both him and his equipment through today. We all got an unusually tiring workout. Zach has been training for a marathon and fared the best.
Charlie distracts Lily with nuts while Lynn takes her heart rateEventually, we caught up to Lily. Charlie Russell was a real trooper and enjoyed meeting Lily. Among other things, her heart rate was 82, which is a usual heart rate for summer.
At the Bear Center, a strange bear wanted into the pen with Honey again. Apparently she is still attractive.
NABC privacy fenceAlso, the new privacy fence is attractive. It blocks the view of stored equipment at the Bear Center and funnels people onto the interpretive nature trail. One little improvement at a time.
So far, we’ve seen only one tent caterpillar around Ely this year. They got a late start with the cold spring. The Bear Fun and Facts Group (BFF Group) did their usual good job putting together information on this favorite bear food that makes later bear foods less abundant. The article tells more. https://www.facebook.com/notes/bffbetty/forest-tent-caterpillars-good-news-and-bad-news/333800540084105.
A former bear hunter emailed to ask what we thought of Charlie feeding grizzly bears. We thought the answer might be interesting to Lily Fans, too.
“Jim thanks for the thoughtful concern. I asked Charlie about that, too. I was happy to learn that with the cubs he raised and took for long walks as part of the weaning process received their supplementary early food bowls at 2 specific times of the day at a specific location. Thus, the cubs were not expecting food from him when they were away from the feeding location. That enabled him to accompany them as a trusted entity but not as a food source. They did natural foraging as a step toward independence. Later, he would run into familiar bears who were by then foraging entirely in the wild. He could then accompany them to see what they were eating, doing, etc. He was essentially ignored as someone they knew and trusted but was neither a competitor nor a food-giver.
I did similar studies with white-tailed deer, and it worked amazingly well. Wild deer that accompanied the study deer came to accept me to a large extent and let me see that the wild diets were the same as the deer we bottle fed.
Charlie found the same with the totally wild bears that came to accept him to an extent—just as the wild bears of national parks get used to seeing people and come to accept them to an extent.
The study black bears we work with are similar but more accepting in that we can touch them. They don’t try to play with us or express affection. We are trusted but regarded neither as friends nor foes, not competitors, and not significant food-givers. We give them treats as part of distracting them while we touch them to adjust radio-collars, change batteries, take heart rates, assess stages of lactation and estrus, take DNA hair samples, etc. Then they go on their ways pursuing their wild agendas. That ended up a rather long answer, I guess. Hope to meet you at the lecture. Introduce yourself, if you would. Lynn"
Snapping turtleIn the yard at the Research Center today, a snapper made a nest in the exact same place two snappers did last year even though we have since covered that spot with stones. Last year the second snapper dug up the first ones nest—destroying nearly all of the eggs—in the process of digging its own nest. We've had two snapping turtles this year, but they dug in separate spots so hopefully we will have two nests hatching next fall.
And to Lily Fans, 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.