Lily Makes a Move
May 21, 2010 – 9:20 PM CDT
Lily finally broke her pattern and made a big move with Hope. Between 8:30 AM and 2 PM she and Hope traveled 2 miles. Then Lily’s GPS readings were again concentrated in a small area. We walked in to their location about 6 PM and found them both high in a red pine. Hope was sound asleep. Two miles is a long walk for those little legs! Video of our visit is posted at http://www.bear.org/website/lily-a-hope/den-cam-video-clips.html.
About 6:30 PM, Lily left Hope sleeping in the tree and made a quick move 1.8 miles away. She covered 0.93 miles of that distance in 11 minutes. That’s nearly 5.1 miles per hour—the fastest we have recorded for a traveling bear. She had to be loping much of that way. The usual top speeds we record are between 0.8 and 1.4 miles per hour. We’re watching to see what she does next and how soon she will come back to Hope. Her move is reminiscent of one June made in 2004 when she left her cubs in a tree and traveled 2.5 miles over a 4-hour period marking her territory. Mothers who have restricted their movements because of young cubs may need to leave them briefly to mark their territory so they don’t lose it to another female.
June also caught our interest today. We questioned whether she was done with Big Harry when he left her yesterday. Now with Big Harry gone, June is back to cruising. We know her neighbor, Donna, will be mating this spring, so it’s possible Big Harry took a break from June to check on Donna. Pursuant to that thought, June is heading into Donna’s territory right now. She is moving twice as quickly as usual—1.6 mph—like a bear on a mission. Her motives are only speculation until we can verify, but getting answers to understand their activities is what keeps us running.
Cal did not continue heading north. He swung east a couple miles and then went WNW 3 miles and ended up resting all afternoon within 0.4 miles of Highway 53. A short while ago, about 8 PM, he began moving north. In the morning, we’ll see what he did overnight.
Braveheart is a question. She had been with Jack, but was seen alone yesterday and we surmised she was done ‘running around.’ Today she is with Crackle—the prettiest bear we know. He is a rich brown. Could she be thinking of mating with him, or is he just a fun bear to hang out with? Crackle gets along with a lot of the bears. We’ll check on them tomorrow. Anyone else feel like they need a scorecard to keep up with all this?
An anonymous donor is talking about putting up a lot of matching money. Stay tuned!
Thank you for your contributions.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, North American Bear Center