Lily and Hope - 2010Saving the best for last, social media is part of the advance in technology that was and is a major key to making the Den Cams a success. Social media helped us find over a hundred Den-Watchers to collect minute by minute data 24/7, providing more coverage than any scientist could do otherwise.
Lily, Hope, Faith and Jason - 2011Here’s the story. Back in January 2010 when these Den Cams began, Lynn didn’t even know what social media was. Sue said a Facebook page would be more than we could handle with the research. But WildEarth.TV created a Facebook page for Lily anyway. Questions began coming in from people who truly wanted to know about bears. Lynn quickly learned that social media networks like Facebook are the information dissemination tools of our time. His goal of educating about bears was coming true.
Lily and Faith - 2012Our world changed further after Doug Hajicek got on NBC Today. Later that day, Google posted that Lily was the number one search topic on Google in the world and “The eyes of the world are on Ely, Minnesota.”
Suddenly, thousands were joining Lily the Black Bear’s Facebook page every day. We remember much-needed donations coming in that we hadn’t known enough to ask for. Lily Fans became a force to be reckoned with as they spread the word about bears and used their voting power to raise over $247,500 for local causes. Lily Fans became a welcome addition to Ely’s economy as they came to visit by the thousands.
Jewel, Fern and Herbie - 2012Out of that surge of bear interest came the Den-Watcher Team led by Dr. Janet Dalton and Biologist Lynne Cann. Over a hundred Den-Watchers each took 1-hour shifts to cover the Den Cams 24/7. They provided scientific coverage that we never could have done otherwise. Den-Watchers and other Lily Fans notified Linda Gibson and us of noteworthy events. We captured the events from the video archives, posted them on YouTube, and mentioned them in the updates. In so doing, we were building a body of previously unknown den behaviors that will now be peer-reviewed and published. The purpose of this paper is the same as our presentation at the 22nd International Conference on Bear Research and Management in September—to disseminate the observations and encourage comparative studies.
Lily, Eli and Ellie - 2013Den-Watchers went further. They, along with many other Lily Fans, learned to recognize individual cubs by head shape, markings, fur color, and sex. They learned to categorize vocalizations and behaviors. They recorded minute by minute standardized data on Excel spreadsheets—providing data for an upcoming paper on daily time budgets during hibernation. As we all now know, bears do more than just sleep in dens. Identifying individual cubs also provided data on nipple order, sibling dominance, play relations, and differences in sibling relations with their mothers—all topics for papers as we add to the data this winter with Lily and Juliet.
Jewel, Fern and Herbie - 2013The DNR okayed den cams for research but not live streaming to the public or schools. Assuming things fall in place at Lily and Juliet’s dens (Jewel’s den is inaccessible), we will stream video live to us and the Den-Watchers. To abide by the court order, each person will have his or her own account with WildEarth.TV to make sure we are not streaming live to the public, which could cost us our permit during this critical time. Ironically, with Verizon having 4G LTE fully implemented, viewing should be the best ever. We’re hoping for a loosening of constraints after the hearing February 24-28, 2014.
—Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center