Cub peers over snow-covered JulietThe big news today is that, on the advice of our attorneys, we are making the archive Den Cam videos available to the educators who sent us their contact information. Action is ramping up in Juliet’s den as the end of their time in the den nears. Finally, students can watch and learn. We received immediate feedback from educators:
Thank you for myself and my Kindergarteners!
Thank you so much. My students will be thrilled, as will many other school children.
This is thrilling news!!!!!
Honey walks in the woods - Mar 31Last night, it’s a good thing the power outage kept us from posting the update we had written. We wrote about March going out like a lamb with temperatures above freezing all day and Honey celebrating with another walk in the woods. Then the power went out, a blizzard hit, and March went out like a lion. Honey had taken refuge in her wooden window den by this morning.
Honey works the rock den - Mar 31Honey’s walks are interesting in that they are more exploratory than food-seeking. She walked into the woods and then spent time digging in the rock den — her latest interest. She doesn’t sit by the gate like she wants food. Ted and Lucky haven’t stirred yet.
2 cubs peek outWe’re moving forward on exhibits for the Northwoods Ecology Hall. A great gray owl and a great-horned owl are being mounted in flying positions to hang from the ceiling. The beautiful moose, wolf, and woodland caribou mounts will be educational centerpieces. The wolf and moose are icons of the northwoods, and the extirpated woodland caribou will introduce northwoods history since the glaciers.
Cubs play while Juliet rakesDonations to the birthday fundraiser will be used in part to create other exhibits, and volunteers are stepping forward to help with an exhibit we are particularly excited about that will teach northwoods sounds.
An attempted escape!One of the nation’s top wildlife sound recordists has stepped forward to donate signature sounds of the northwoods. These are sounds without the motor hum of a recorder or the hiss of a cheap microphone. These will be pure nature sounds heard in surround sound. A photographer with a major collection of northwoods wildlife will donate pictures to be shown on a big wall monitor as the sounds are heard.
Connecticut WarblerA technical 
White-throated Sparrow volunteer is creating the software and assembling the equipment to have the pictures and any information shown on the monitor as the visitors hear the corresponding sounds. Many people don’t know that the familiar sweet sounds of “Oh Sweet Canada, Canada, Canada” are the song of the White-throated Sparrow or that the rich chirping heard in spruce swamps are from the Connecticut Warbler, a local specialty that people travel from afar to see. Learning leads to appreciation of wildlife and their habitats.
Sounds will include wolves and ravens, of course, and all 8 frogs and toads of the area. And that is just a start. Thank you for all you are doing to make this possible.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center