Lily re-collared and request for your comments
April 11, 2010 – 8:26 PM CDT
Donna and I are back from a nice day with our daughter Colleen, her husband Nick, and our grandson Henry at his dedication. It was a fun visit but it’s always good to get back to the quiet of the ‘Northwoods’ after the noise and traffic of ‘the cities’ (Minneapolis/St. Paul).
We read half of your wonderful birthday cards in the 8 hours we spent driving down and back. Thank you again. Your words are encouraging. The cards are too good not to share. We will make an exhibit of “Bears in human art and culture” showing the many faces of bears. Bears are among the first wild animals children learn to recognize. The exhibit will grow as we add Native American beliefs and beliefs from around the world—ancient and present.
Your comments in the cards and on Facebook also are contributing to another exhibit: Lily and her Hope. The exhibit will give background on Lily, describe the phenomenon of her popularity, and attempt to explain it using your comments about what it meant to you. I remember reading great comments on Facebook, but now I’m having a hard time finding them. What I gathered was that the opportunity to learn the truth about this maligned species directly from Lily herself and seeing that she is so close to human in the care she gives, and the sounds are human enough to captivate any caring person (and even cats and dogs), and the fact that we can watch the natural activities of a wild, undisturbed mother doing what no one has witnessed before turned out to be an unparalleled educational opportunity. Some of you said it shorter and with better words. I want to pull some of those quotes together. You can help me by emailing your comments to
Today we checked on Lily and found her near the same white pine she’s been bedded at since April 2. She’s created several beds near the pine and has been marking and climbing trees in the area. We noticed right off that something was amiss—Lily wasn’t wearing her collar! Looking around, we found it on the ground next to a soundly sleeping Hope so we put it back on—one notch tighter this time. We are very fortunate Lily hadn’t moved from the area! We posted new video from today at http://www.bear.org/website/lily-a-hope/den-cam-video-clips.html.
The GPS locations June’s collar is sending to our computers show she and her yearlings are beginning to roam. We’ll be watching closely tomorrow to see what‘s next with her family.
Thank you again for the wonderful outpouring of sentiment and donations. You have become part of the Bear Center team!
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, North American Bear Center