There is Hope!
May 25, 2010 – 7:50 PM CDT
The emotional roller coaster continues. Heartbreak is turning into hope. After a day of dealing with our emotions while telling many TV and newspaper reporters that we were making one last attempt to find her, we got a call while standing at the red pine. A neighbor had spotted Hope running out of their yard not 200 yards away from where we were. We hurried over.
Hope was gone. We searched for a couple hours in the direction she went. We prepared a pan of diluted sweetened condensed milk with ground up pecans and put it the last place she was seen.
A few calls later, and a town official was heading over to put up a trail camera by the food.
We made calls to law enforcement and the fire department for an infra-red heat detection device to try to locate Hope in treetops against the night sky after it gets dark. At first we were unsuccessful, but the call was taken up by Beth Jett, anchorperson for Fox 21 News. Shortly, we got a call from Captain Tom Crossman of the St Louis County Rescue Squad that one of his men would shuttle a unit to us for the search tonight.
As soon as we finish writing this, we are heading out to search once again before it gets too dark.
Our goal is to find Hope and keep her alive in the forest in hopes Lily will reunite with her. Lily is currently 4 miles away, covering ground and maintaining her territory, but she will be back.
Thank you so much for your tremendous support the last few days. We are all pulling together for Hope. We were pretty down about it here. Some followers of the Lily and Hope saga knew better than us that she was still alive. As it turned out, she is not only alive but vigorous. The person who saw her said she ran away. Before all this, she was getting so strong she could climb as fast as a squirrel and run like a rabbit. As Kathy Allworth said, “She’s too sassy and spunky to be dead this quick.” Right on, Kathy.
Heading out.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, North American Bear Center