Faith in den Mike and Lorie made the trek to Faith’s den today. Two hours of walking each way. Faith had a lot of soft bedding in her den under the trunk of an old wind-throw. They removed the GPS unit and stiff plastic pieces, but Faith wouldn’t wait for them to remove the ribbons. She wanted to settle back down, so they let her do just that.
Mike and Lorie put in a big day. We can only imagine how long it would take to walk to Faith’s den in deep snow. We’re glad they could beat the snow. The ice on marshes held Mike up until near the end of the walk. We’re glad he could make most of the walk in dry boots.
Long view of Faith's denThe shallow den would have been good for a den cam if it weren’t so hard to get to. It may have opened a new dimension in our observations of hibernation behavior. Unlike the previous dens, it would likely contain only one bear, Faith, with little chance of her having cubs. That would show us how an undisturbed lone bear spends her time without cubs to care for and littermates to play with. We’ll have to wait on that. Hopefully we’ll be allowed more than two den cams in the future so we can expand observations to new situations while continuing to monitor bears with data histories for year-to-year comparisons. This is the first study ever of the behavior of undisturbed black bears in dens. We want to make the most of it and publish solid scientific data that is not hampered by restrictions that reduce sample size and slow our ability to publish strong peer-reviewed papers.
FaithAt the Bear Center, we and the staff had a 3 ¼ hour fruitful discussion on how to make the most of the Hope Learning Center, how to improve the Cub Room, and how to provide computer-oriented older students with information in the manner they prefer to obtain it.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All images taken today unless otherwise noted.