Shadow - Clan Matriarch 27-year-old Shadow made one of her rare appearances at the WRI and posed for a picture showing the light hair on her crown and forehead that she has earned due to her years of wariness. After all her years of visiting feeding stations in the community, she remains perhaps the most wary bear we know. She knows certain routines regarding feeding, but any deviation, any odd sound, and she backs off. When she wore a collar, we were lucky to glimpse her in the woods. We hope her wariness and good luck continues through hunting seasons to come.
Aster at a feeding station 8/7/1411-year-old Colleen finally made her first appearance at a feeding station, showing off her two cubs. This is the first we’ve heard of Colleen this year. Colleen is a mystery bear known for removing 3 radio-collars overwinter in places where no signal transmits to be picked up even from an airplane. She has a penchant for denning deep in rock crevices. We suspect that at least one such den was too deep for us to pick up her signal and find her. We’d love to retrieve the radio-collars she has left behind.
3-year-old Aster is doing okay but the picture on the trail cam at the feeding station Lorie Kennedy checked suggests she may still be favoring her wounded left front leg. The photo is from yesterday.
Ellie - daughter of Lily 7/31/141-year-old Ellie was photographed at a feeding station last week. We got the photo by email today.
All good news.
Supportive comments continue to arrive from the UK as a result of the BBC documentary “A Bear With A Bounty” which seems to have created thousands of new Lily Fans to strengthen the ranks. We hope a good number fill out volunteer applications at http://www.bear.org/website/volunteer.html (scroll down, application link is in the left hand column).
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.