Lily Moves On
April 1, 2010 – 9:41 PM CDT
Lily and Hope finally made the move to a big white pine today. About 9:10 AM, Lily made one final check of her den. Shortly, Hope began screaming for mom. That might mean that Lily took an excursion to check out a more secure bed site, which, around here, is a big white pine 92 percent of the time.
Meanwhile, Lynn was on his way back from New York and Sue was checking other bears, so the last time the loyal den cam watchers heard the bears in the den cam mic is the best estimate of when they left. About 4:30 PM, two new people, Max and Jo, checked by telemetry and found the bears were no longer at yesterday’s bed site. Eventually, they radio-located Lily and Hope 120 yards away at the base of white pine nearly 3 feet in diameter. When Lynn returned and listened to the web cam about 6:40 PM, he heard their voices as they were leaving. Wondering what was happening; Lynn drove over, checked near Lily’s den and eventually found Lily and Hope at the white pine. He recognized the tree as the same white pine Lily had used as a secure bed site last September. We don’t know whether Hope walked or was carried by Lily to this new bed.
White pines are generally the safest trees for cubs to climb. They have rough, strong bark that is not slippery like birch and not flaky like spruce and some other pines. Black bear mothers with cubs will pass thousands of other trees to bed at the base of a big white pine. If the whole family has to escape danger, the strong branches can hold the whole family. The needles provide shade when deciduous trees have not yet leafed out. Shade is important because the dark fur absorbs heat and bears can overheat. The temperature today reached 64 here this afternoon. When Lynn arrived, Lily and Hope were at the base of the tree. Lily’s was very attentive to distant sounds to the east. Then they settled down and nursed, and Lynn left.
Lynn said he had 5 opportunities to do good interviews and finally got it right with Martha. He had no choice about the bear being present. Each program did a nice job plugging Bearwalker, which airs on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Easter Sunday evening, April 4. He is grateful to all the programs that had him on. He also did a half hour interview with Michael Hughes, a columnist to writes about television programs. We don’t know where he publishes his columns. Lynn said Michael had really done his homework and might write an interesting column.
Today, Sue found June (Lily’s mother) still near her den with her yearlings Jewel and Jordan. Juliet is still in her den with 3 new cubs that are all smaller than Hope. Dot and her yearlings have moved away from their den. Sue collected nearly 6 ¼ pounds of scat from outside Donna’s den, which is an unusually large amount. Is this related to Donna’s unexpected failure to produce cubs? Analyzing the scats might help solve this mystery.
We’re working on streaming video (rather than just pictures) for the Bear Center web cam. We’re also working on how to post video clips of Lily and Hope to YouTube and bear.org on a regular basis.
Thank you for your patience as well as your contributions and support.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, North American Bear Center