Black bears are often said to be the North American counterpart of the great apes. Like the great apes, black bears are omnivores, have a semi-human form, and are tree climbers. 
Yearling bear in nestA question is whether black bears create sleeping nests in trees like great apes do. Yesterday, Mike and Lorie watched and heard a yearling male black bear high in a white pine as he pulled branches together into a nest, breaking them as needed. Unlike other bear nests we’ve seen (with one exception), it had nothing to do with gathering food. Such nests are most commonly found in fruiting or nut-producing trees where bears sit in a crotch and pull the branches together to gather the food. They may hold them in place by sitting on the branches and, finally, may take a nap on the platform that is created. But white pines provide no food. Some years ago, a fellow scientist and I began writing about bear nests but set the manuscript aside because of my doubts about some of it. This observation adds fuel to that fire.
Lynn and Donna Rogers dancingDate night was fun and encouraging. Donna and I went to a Pat and Donna Surface outdoor concert in Winton, MN (near Ely). Pat and Donna are dear friends. Donna called earlier to tell us they would be performing. Always good fun and good music. My two favorite singers are Pat Surface and Elvis. Pat creates the kind of music we like to hear playing in the background for ambience. If we play his albums during courses, participants buy them. Same at the Bear Center. Pat and Donna (Spiritwoodmusic.com) are great promoters of the Bear Center and bears. They are Lily Fans who had their lives changed by the bears. Donna Surface saw us join the crowd late. We were greeted with hugs from several people, including a DNR employee who knows the truth. Donna Surface announced that we had joined the audience and mentioned “how much [we] do for Ely and the Bear Center” to the applause of the audience. When she had a break, she had a waiter come to us so she and Pat could buy us each a drink. Pat launched into talking in my voice with phrases I use. People laughed and clapped and turned around smiling with us at how good he was. Then he sang one of the songs he wrote about bears and me. This one was Makwa Manido (Spirit Bear) that is in a couple of their albums. Another is Bearwalker: One Step at a Time. The concert ended with a slow song and everyone getting up and dancing. As soon as the music was over, the couple in front of us turned around and extended a hand and said they are from Eagles Nest Community and are totally supportive of all the bear work we are doing. They said they see bears a lot and have never had a problem. They told me that so many people feel the same. We talked about what a wonderful nature-loving community it is and that nature-loving in this community includes bears. Afterward, Pat showed me a Prayer Shawl he will use at an upcoming performance for Judy McClure, the Bear Center employee who is on chemo for stage 4 cancer. Pat and Donna also played for Judy’s fundraiser at Ledgerock Community Church a couple months ago. I told Judy about the Prayer Shawl event coming up and she was surprised. Pat and Donna are like that.
More on the early history of my bear work.
After graduating with high honors from Michigan State University, I arrived at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in late summer of 1968. I was greeted with two surprises. Doc Erickson (Dr. Albert W. Erickson) had fast-tracked me directly into the Ph.D. program, and he had enrolled me into the prestigious new Department of Ecology and Behavioral Biology (EBB). I asked him, “Why not the Wildlife Department?” He said the Wildlife Department was designed more for wildlife management but EBB was designed more for research which he thought was a better fit. I didn’t know until later what a favor he had done. I ended up having instructors with stellar backgrounds teaching the kinds of information and theory available only in the top universities. I dove into learning in the classrooms, the excellent libraries there, and from my highly select fellow graduate students who had the same curiosity that I had. We shared ideas in the hallways and in discussion-type courses. Doc had done everything possible to give me the best start. And I would soon learn that The University of Minnesota was a world leader in the development of radio-telemetry technology. I would be getting in on the ground floor of this state of the art research tool. Everything was exciting. I studied harder than I had ever studied in high school and junior college when I was still living at home and was more interested in sports, fun, and being out in nature.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center