All's right in the world!
March 29, 2010 – 9:53 PM CDT
At 3:4 PM CDT today, Hope was alone in the den. She climbed to the edge only to execute an amazing back plop down into the den. However, she righted herself and tried again. At 3:45 PM she succeeded in climbing out and soon moved out of camera range. We heard Lily’s grunts and Hope’s coos grow softer as they moved away from the den. Shortly thereafter the mic went dead—leaving us all to wonder if this was ‘the final exit.’
We headed to the den and found Lily and Hope in the same bed they had used on March 21 when they were last out of the den together—but this time we actually got to see Hope! Both mom and cub seemed relaxed as we snapped a picture and then settled in to observe them. We watched as Lily nursed Hope and then played with her. The wandered around a bit and Lily seemed to want to lead Hope away, but Hope still lacks the coordination to easily follow Lily. As the sun began to set and the cold began to settle in, Lily seemed to want to return to the den. We bid our farewells and left them.
We then turned our attention to the microphone. The mic jack in the PC is temperamental and it takes patience and a gentle touch to get it just right. As we were working on the mic, we noticed in the monitor that Lily was returning to the den. All is well. Lily and Hope are back in the den and the mic is once again working. All's right in the world!
This morning volunteers teamed up to retrieve 2-year-old Jo’s radio-collar from her culvert den. Eli, 7-year-old son of Facebook fan Kim Breimeier, volunteered to crawl into the den. He explored his options and made several valiant attempts, but was unable to reach the collar. Al Stoops donned coveralls and, relying on his spelunking experience, managed to wriggle into the narrow culvert and locate the collar. The collar was frozen into the bedding material of her den and had to be chipped out. 
Once the radio-collar was retrieved, the group experimented with tossing it far into the woods and using the antenna and receiver to locate it. It was truly an adventure and I think it’s fair to say ‘a good time was had by all.’ Thank you to Jim Stroner for the pictures.
I talked to Lynn Rogers today after his appearance on the Today Show. He echoed the thoughts of many who saw the show—the tame bear was a distraction. Lynn was cut off before he could mention the bear.org website. He learned his lesson—that won’t happen again. Tomorrow morning he will appear on Fox and Friends, then on Happy Hour tomorrow evening. Wednesday Lynn appears on the Martha Stewart Show, and he assured me there would be no distracting bear. The show is planning to feature archive footage of Lily and Hope in the den – and hopefully Lily and Hope will still actually be in their den for the new folks who tune in to the den cam feed!
Thank you again for your contributions and support. Lily’s fans continue to come up with clever ways of decreasing the NABC debt. Many people are currently participating in the Lucky 7’s Fun-Draiser.
—Sue Mansfield, Biologist, North American Bear Center