Eagles at nestOf all the bears the course participants met today, meeting Lily was the highlight, along with visiting the den where she gave birth to Hope. Along the way, participants clicked pictures of eagles, deer, and other wildlife (shown here). The doe and two fawns swimming in line was the only thing any of us had never seen before, so it had to be included even though the picture is blurry.
Bald eaglesDiscussion at the table included the value of the education, especially the Den Cams to the educators attending. The Montessori teacher told how the Den Cams gripped her students like nothing else. A K-5 counselor told how she used the Den Cam videos to be more effective with the problem students she dealt with. A high school physiology teacher told how our material was important in her teaching. We know that stories like these have played out in hundreds of schools and we’re grateful to have facilitated the process.
Deer family swimmingFour sub-adult bears showed up that obviously knew each other and us. The 2 males and two females were likely offspring of Braveheart, Bow, Juliet, and/or RC, but the prohibition on collaring new bears the last few years has prevented us from documenting changes in their appearance as they grew. We could not be certain of identities. 
Heron taking offWe have long wanted to document family relations after family breakup. But tonight we could only watch and wonder as these two to three-year-old bears played, ate with their heads nearly touching, and the largest male repeatedly mounted one of the females. 
MallardThe fact that we have been prohibited from doing proper behavioral science the last couple years is one of the reasons we removed the radio-collars. As the value of our research increased over the years, we had hoped the DNR would get fully behind it, however the opposite happened. But for the course participants, it was a wonderful show of bear behaviors even if we couldn’t be sure of the kinship relations among the bears.
As we think about moving forward with education, distance learning, speakers bureau, black bear boxes, and so much more that Lily Fans are making possible, we can only say 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.