Lily, Ellie, and Eli - 12:51 PM Today we checked the trail camera overlooking Lily, Ellie, and Eli’s deep rock den. It showed her and both cubs out raking bedding between 10:50 AM and 1:05 PM. They may have retreated to the den when they first heard our voices. We arrived at the den at 1:32 PM. The trail cam showed that none of the bears ventured outside the den yesterday—a mostly rainy day. We put a new card in the trail camera to learn “the rest of the story” as it unfolds over the next couple weeks. 34F and overcast today—no snow cover.
Lily rakingAt the Bear Center, the Web Store is fully loaded for the Holidays—the new calendar, the new Holiday card, the new book, and much more at http://www.bear.org/website/gift-shop-pages/product/listing/34-holiday-items.html.
2014 CalendarA note on the Calendar: it’s terrific…again. This time the theme is the Cubs of Shadow’s Clan. It equals last year’s—and has an awesome cuteness factor with all the cubs. Design by Linda Gibson, photos by Jim Stroner, and text by Betty Beauchamp. Betty scanned the updates and put together factual summaries of events leading to births. She tells how bears live both halves of their lives—inside and outside dens. Each cub is identified by name, mother, and year of birth. The final page is the annual update on the status of the clan bears and who was born this year. In addition to the 39 pictures of cubs that make up the bulk of the calendar, the 2nd to last page shows all 20 of the mothers mentioned. This calendar, like the previous ones is more than a calendar to throw away. It’s a keepsake of information and pictures of Shadow’s Clan. Once again, good job team!
Lily pulling bedding into denBeyond all the above, the Speakers Bureau continues to spread the word. We received this report from Rhonda Hennis on her presentation at a gathering of student teachers at University of North Carolina, Wilmington, yesterday.
“21 future teachers learned the truth about black bears at UNC-Wilmington, they gave me permission to give this report. I used the power-point pictures at the beginning about what literature teaches us about bears (teddy bears or furious animals) and I also use some of the ones about teaching concepts to children like the color phases, historically why black bears are timid (sizes of the black bear to the short face bear...)
The rest of the presentation was just literally teaching them some things I teach preschoolers and activities to help the children understand these concepts...like what sounds do they make and what they eat, giving them ways to structure the teaching (one day a month about bears) and we took a lot of time exploring the NABC website so they could know how to increase their personal knowledge and knew what the NABC had to offer under the education tab.....they had lots of questions and were very interested...we stayed way past the time I was given...my hope is they will never teach something again without researching the subject thoroughly!"
Thanks to all of 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.