Lily and familyToday, we hiked in to Lily’s den to check batteries and swap out memory cards in the trail cams placed there. One cam was mounted to a tree and aimed toward the den entrance. The other was mounted above the den and aimed down into it. The snow around the den had been disturbed and large areas were packed down. The camera above the den had been ‘played’ with and was askew.
Lily exits denThe bears were in the den when we arrived but they apparently had spent considerable time out of the den in recent days. The trail cam batteries were fine, so we pulled the memory cards, relocated the ‘skewed’ cam, and left. Thank you bears!
First yearling exits denWe left knowing the memory cards likely held the secret to the date Lily, Eli, and Ellie first ventured out. We were VERY surprised to find the bears left the den for the first time at 2:08 PM CT…TODAY! One of the yearlings left first with Lily a close second. The family spent an hour and 15 minutes out of the den—reentering just 35 minutes prior to our arrival.
One of Lily's yearlingsIt’s hard to believe they could have disturbed the snow to such an extent in a short time, but indeed they did! It must have felt good to leave the confines of the den and be free to romp and play in the warm (40s F) spring air.
Lily and family out of the denIn less than 2 days, Lily Fans covered the costs of 28 of the 36 available taxidermy items, giving the Bear Center a jump-start in opening the Ecology Exhibit in early summer. The updated list is posted here. We like the idea of having Lily Fans’ names all over in the Bear Center. More on this tomorrow.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
Note: Date/Time stamp on trail cam images reflects Central Standard Time.