Juliet - March 4, 2014In this 7-minute highlight video of Juliet and cubs from March 4, 2014, the cubs are remarkably quiet when partially exposed in the wee hours when temperatures were down around 35° below zero. But Juliet waited until temperatures were warmer to do the first of her snow-feeding at 10:53:25 AM. Her 3 sessions totaling about 11 minutes were all between 10:53 AM and 5:03 PM when temperatures were near the high of 12° above zero F. While she was busy eating snow, the cubs seemed content, which suggests that their fur is nicely insulative by now. She used the latrine at 5:07 PM before it turned bitterly cold again.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeLadmutEso
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/121215424
Archives: http://www.bearstudy.org/website/research/2014-juliet-archives.html
An opinion piece ran in the New York Times about the value of museum collections that scientists can examine and form their individual opinions about. The same thinking also apply to our video collection that Sue is cataloguing these days. The collection is truly a library of life showing bear behavior that scientists and the public can watch and form opinions about just as we and Lily Fans did together. The things we learned are beyond what anyone could learn in lectures or books; we were/are all eye witnesses. We feel thankful that we had the opportunity to gather these unique and priceless records of wild bear behavior before “authorities” believed they needed to end it, saying that the Den Cams made people too emotionally attached to wild bears. Ironically, a University professor told us today that he would like to analyze portions of them for publication if the money can be raised to do the work.
Meanwhile, we are making progress on the Northwoods Ecology Hall thanks in part to Lily Fans.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center