Looking for Hope
July 5, 2010 – 5:57 PM CDT
Hope did a disappearing act today. We drove all over, climbed hills, and listened. No radio signal. We imagined the worst. We spent an embarrassingly long time looking for her then found her where we started our search in her usual haunts. She ate her food, and we felt peace of mind. We don’t know where she had been or why we couldn’t find her. Only Hope knows, and she’s not telling. She acted totally innocent.
We visited Hope’s grandmother, June. By the time we reached her at midday, she had retreated 40 yards into a cedar swamp to lie in the water. But the signs of her earlier foraging were plain as day. We followed her trail of destruction through a big grassy opening and saw how she had checked log after log, sniffing some and tearing others open for ants. Other foods in the area were blueberries, raspberries, and a little wild lettuce. We didn’t get a dropping to see what she had selected beyond the obvious ant colonies.
With a sunny sky and the temperature in the 80’s F, she couldn’t stay out in the open very long. Her dark fur would soak up too much sunlight, so she had retreated to a swamp to cool off.
Years ago we noticed how briefly bears stayed in open sunlight. On a calm, windless 73-degree day (May 31, 1990) we checked the fur temperature of a foraging bear. The tips of the fur were as hot as 185 degrees where the sun hit squarely on the bear’s back. The bear still had most of its winter coat to insulate the skin from the sun, but heat crept down through 2.3 inches of guard hairs and 1.7 inches of dense under fur to raise skin temperature to 112 degrees. The bear panted as its rectal temperature rose to 103.4. After a half hour in the sun, the bear retreated into the Kawishiwi River to drink. Then the bear stretched out in the shade so its sparsely furred belly made maximum contact with the ground. Four days earlier, we had checked how effectively this reduces body temperature. With an ambient temperature of 74F and a ground temperature of 49.6F, rectal temperature fell from 103.7 to 101.8 in 21 minutes.
What an amazing job Lily’s fans have done to put us in the top five in the Chase Community Giving—and what a challenge it is to stay there with several close behind registering votes like mad too! You are keeping us in the top 5, though, exchanging gift votes with each other and digging up new people to vote—friends, family, and co-workers. More info can be found about voting at http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=464068264477&comments&ref=mf.
If you are voting for other organizations to earn gift votes for the Bear Center, here are some bear organizations that are far down the list. If you can leave a comment, urge them to vote for the Bear Center and the Wildlife Research Institute.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center