Lily the Black BearLily and her 3 cubs made an appearance at one of the community feeding stations showing they were all fine. The cubs were shy and in shadows, but Lily came into the sun for a picture that shows she is shedding, starting on her face. It makes her look a little like Fern with the shorter fur on her face due to having mange overwinter, but for Lily it is just normal shedding of the long fur, revealing the short fur coming in. She looked great to me, seeing her partly with my eyes and partly with my heart. Knowing how gentle and trusting she is brings out protective instincts in all who know her, but also fear knowing that certain hunters have goals of shooting her for reasons that have nothing to do with hunting or with caring about her value as a research animal.
Donna was spotted with all four of her cubs, so the cub that was hit by a vehicle was not one of hers. There are a couple small yearlings in that area that might have been mistaken for a cub if it were one of those.
Herring Gull FlyingMore on the down side, we hadn’t seen the tame gull for a long time. He or she had come so regularly. Totally unrelated in my mind was a dead bird beside the highway 12 miles away at the edge of Ely. Yesterday I stopped to see what kind of bird it was. It was a gull with the exact pattern of orange and dark on its beak.
On the up side, progress on the Ecology Hall is encouraging. So many people helping.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center