Last evening, the call I’d been anxiously waiting for came. It was dark out, and the caller couldn’t be sure, but he saw familiar markings on the yearlings that matched up with our records for Lily. Today, the caller was sure. Lily was back with her two yearlings.
Now we’re waiting for sightings of others we know. We probably won’t see any mothers with this year’s cubs for a couple weeks or so.
Another thing that made me glow was seeing these videos of our Ambassador Bears in action. Instead of pacing, these bears are playing, enjoying their pond, and exploring their forest with its changes through the seasons. That’s how we tried to design it, and we’re glad that’s how it turned out. We tried to design it as a world model for captive bear care—minimizing cement and fences, providing room to roam, and using Mother Nature as our Director of Enrichment. We are glad to see bears having fun and enjoying companionship. We are glad to see the bears doing what we see bears do in the wild. Here are samples.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIQvLf9RFKc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON9yNn0tOPk
These four pictures of Lucky are another example.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Out the window, the herring gull named 8 and 4 paid a visit and tapped a message on the window asking for food.
Fred and Lucy stopped by. Waiting for a call that might give me a chance to get Lily’s picture one of these days. I haven’t seen her yet.
I also haven’t seen the bear we thought was Fern. The man who saw her now believes it is a different bear, maybe one of her 2-year-old offspring. It is hard to recognize a bear whose facial fur is missing. There is talk in the neighborhood of feeders working to cure the bear of its mange with the help of a veterinarian. The bear is said to be too skittish to be Fern, which could hamper medication. We’ll see what can be done.
The neighborhood is excited and on the alert for new bear sightings.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center