Juliet Lily Fans want to know.
When we mentioned Honey, Holly, and Ted snuggled down into their straw with their heads (or more) buried, Lily Fans wondered what Lucky was up to. We assume he is doing the same with all the straw he had piled up on this den, but he is hidden behind the straw. Most of his entrance is blocked by a big pile of snow so we can’t see him except when he gets up to look through the 4-inch peephole into Holly’s den.
Holly's visitorToday, a Lily Fan captured a shot of an animal scampering across Holly’s blanket as Holly slept in the background. What kind of animal? We are guessing a vole. It looks big, but we think that is because it is much nearer to the camera than Holly is. We have never seen a rat in this area.
Juliet The wild Den Cam picture this year with Verizon 4G LTE is the best ever. When Juliet was licking snow near the Den Cam this afternoon, every hair was visible. There are still a few issues to work out, but we’re close to providing live footage to our experienced Den-Watchers whose assistance has been so valuable to science these past few years.
Juliet Seeing Juliet on camera for the first time, we see she has a deep bed that she was re-arranging today. We know there is some re-arranging of bedding throughout the denning period, but we also know that Lily stepped that up in the week before she gave birth each time. We’re guessing Juliet will give birth between January 10 and 22. Any Lily Fan could make just as educated a guess. Lily gave birth on January 22, 21, and 12 at the ages of 3, 4, and 6, respectively. Jewel gave birth on January 22 at the age of 3. Do they give birth earlier as they get older? Juliet is 10.
Lily Fans had questions:
1. What color is Holly’s fur? If she had all her guard hairs, she’d be black with a little white on her chest. But the short, dense kinky fur visible on her sides and rear is grayish brown.
2. Why are guard hairs important? Guard hairs protect against scratches from vegetation and protect against biting insects. She will grow new guard hairs this summer.
3. At 11 months and 84 pounds, is she average for her age? No, she is nearly double what we’d expect without the supplemental food of captivity.
4. Do you expect Holly to affect Honey, since female bears are so territorial? We hope Honey proves us wrong, but we expect her to chase Holly up trees like she did Lucky.
5. Do you expect tensions to increase between Ted and Lucky? We don’t know what to expect between Ted and Lucky. We plan to watch their interactions carefully and perhaps test them together depending upon their reactions to each other through the fence of Ted’s chalet enclosure. Lucky was castrated to reduce rivalry, but he might already have developed an attitude that wouldn’t be changed with castration.
6. How will Lucky view a young female since he has reached sexual maturity or is this moot since his surgery? We suspect Lucky won’t be attracted to Holly sexually now that he is castrated.
7. Will Holly have to be neutered as well, to get along with Lucky? We don’t think so.
8. Would you, or even could you, open up more land around the NABC if needed with Holly’s addition? We explored that idea last year and would like to expand the enclosure in the future, especially when/if we do rehabilitation.
9. Is there any advantage for Holly arriving at the NABC during the winter while Ted, Honey and Lucky are hibernating or would spring or summer have been more advantageous or does it not matter at all? It really doesn't matter. We’re just glad she is here to start getting to know us as soon as possible.
10. I am concerned that the man who took Holly, is being called a rescuer on your page. I know your research is about habituation, so my question is at what point do you feel an obligation/desire to condemn his actions, or do you feel that his actions truly were rescuing this bear? From what we have heard, he rescued her after a fire separated her from her mother and singed her fur. We also stated that he should have taken her to authorities so she could be raised for release into the wild. As it was, authorities felt she was not suitable for release.
11. I'm curious about the following wording in the 11/25/13 update, "Unlike the previous dens, it would likely contain only one bear, Faith, with little chance of her having cubs." We were only talking about our desire to watch a lone female hibernate to see how different that would be from what we’ve seen so far.
12. Do you have any information on relocating young bears from one climate to another climate (similar to Holly’s story)? No.
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.