Jewel Jewel lived up to her name today. She was a jewel. It took us hours to make the initial contact with her deep in the woods, but eventually we got near enough for her to respond to “It’s me bear.” The woods were so dense and moist, we couldn’t see or hear her until she was very close. All we could hear was her radio-signal getting louder through the receiver speaker. She ignored the Black Bear Field Course participants and went to the voice.
She is beautiful. She has shed all but a dozen hairs of her old coat and is covered with sleek black fur that lies down on her body. Underfur has not yet started to grow in to prop up the guard hairs. She had gone to rest in a dense aspen forest with a thick hazel underbrush. There are few berries in the deep shade of that kind of forest, and the hazel bushes had few hazelnuts developing. She didn’t leave a scat to tell us what she’d been eating.
Today, we received the Court Order, which spells out the settlement we worked out with the DNR yesterday during the court-supervised negotiations. Some stipulations were reported incorrectly in the media in their rush to publish yesterday. The document reflects what we agreed to and can be viewed here: Court Order.
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.