KBJR visit to Lily and Hope
April 30, 2010 – 6:41 PM CDT
News producer David Hoole of Channel 6 in Duluth went with Lynn to determine why Lily’s GPS unit had not given a signal in over 12 hours and to see what habitat Lily was in. Fortunately she hadn’t moved since her last GPS transmission, so she was easy to locate. She and Hope are still holding tight for minimum exposure to the bear world. Although they have moved from the peninsula they were on for so long, they have not yet begun to roam.
Lily and Hope are in an area with mature aspens and big white pines to climb if necessary. It is not an area with aspen saplings. The ground has many large-leaved aster leaves emerging, which is a favorite food at this stage. Her old area was nearly devoid of them. We now suspect her move yesterday was primarily to a new source of aster leaves. We should be slower to say why she does something and wait for more information for a better interpretation. That way, we don’t have to keep backtracking and telling you how wrong we were the day before.
Lily ate some nuts and let me turn her collar right side up so the GPS would work. She’s back ‘on the map.’ She also let me take her heart rate. It turned out to be 83/minute with a speed-up in the last 15 seconds when Hope started vocalizing. David Hoole filmed the meeting and will air it on the Monday evening newscast either May 3 or May 10. We’ll include the link when it’s available. He got some nice shots of Hope and Lily. Also some shots of the Old Bearman adjusting Lily’s collar and taking a heart rate. Hope was cute. Lily was calm, and it was a nice meeting although brief.
Good news on the telephone today from Tim McCray who is coordinating DVD production. He said he would have the DVD’s and will drive them up to Ely on Friday, May 7 so we can start sending them out.
Sue was stuck inside today frantically getting ready for courses that start on Sunday May 2. It will be hard to write updates when the courses are going, but we’ll do our best.
The video posted today on http://www.bear.org/website/lily-a-hope/den-cam-video-clips.html is from our visit with Lily and Hope on April 28.
Thank you for your continued support of our research and educational efforts.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, North American Bear Center