Cole While Sue and the legal team were in St. Paul working to ensure the research continues, Lynn and the Black Bear Field Course were observing Lily and June and getting fleeting glimpses of June’s cubs Cole and Ember. June was foraging in an open, sunny, clear-cut and had to take time out to cool off in a wallow. She showed how she uses her canine teeth and claws to rip into logs and then uses her long tongue to lick the ants and pupae from the ant colonies she exposes.
June forages on ant pupaeA fresh scat confirmed what Jim Stroner saw her doing a few days ago. Jim saw her going from ant log to ant log and eating bunches of blueberries between. June’s scat today showed she is still doing that. It was full of ants and blueberries. 
June cools offJim saw her go through raspberry bushes without taking a berry. The scat today had no raspberry seeds.
June's ant logRaspberries grow singly and are hard to gather in number. Blueberries grow in bunches and are easy to high grade as she passes by. By high-grade, we mean quickly gather the most prominent bunches without slowing down to gather every last berry from each bush. Long ago, after watching bears do that, we tried picking the bear way and the human way. The bear way won. One person moved over an area quickly gathering only the most prominent bunches like a bear. Another person tried to pick the berries more thoroughly from each bush—like a conscientious human.
Ramsey County CourthouseToday’s court decision allows us to maintain our current radio-collars and continue the research while we go through the administrative hearing process. Concessions were made—perhaps the hardest to give up was the ability to broadcast live footage from the den cams. However, we can still collect the den cam footage for our research on hibernation.
Attorney Dave MarshallWe are very thankful for our dedicated legal team—David Marshall, Leah Janus, and Jessica Edwards of Fredrikson & Byron, P.A. They worked (seemingly) tirelessly to present our case and broker the deal today. We look forward to working with them throughout the administrative hearing process.
We know thousands of Lily Fans were behind us today. Thank you for all your support.
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.