Hope Weighs In!
August 26, 2010 – 9:25 PM CDT
Lily and Hope surprised us by stepping onto the scale at the Research Center early this morning. Lily weighed 229 and Hope weighed a very healthy 58 pounds. Hope further accommodated us by leaving a dropping of round-leafed dogwood berry seeds to show us what she’d been up to. After this brush with civilization, the two spent the day deep in the woods.
This afternoon, we flew to find Jo, who has moved away from roads. We wanted to attach ribbons to her collar, but she was too far away and possibly moving farther as we listened to her radio signal.
We also flew to find the long lost Cal who is now almost exactly 90 miles southwest of his den of last winter. He has moved 16 miles south from the area he used earlier this summer. He is 16 miles northwest of Hermantown.
Cal is yet another example of how human sense does not necessarily make bear sense. Cal grew up very familiar with people. He frequented households that have long fed bears. In those locations, people hand-fed and petted him, and he was cool with all of that. Researchers eventually accompanied him hundreds of hours out in the woods. He became oblivious of researchers. Cal is a perfect example of a bear that is thoroughly habituated and food-conditioned, to use the jargon words officials often use when explaining why they ‘have’ to kill bears that lose their fear of people.
Given the assumptions usually associated with the words habituated and food-conditioned, might one conclude that when Cal dispersed from his natal range he would continue to seek food from houses and that he might even seek food from people he sees? He didn’t.
When Cal dispersed from his mother’s territory as a hefty 2-year-old, he avoided people. He traveled to a roadless part of Canada and hibernated there. As a 3-year-old this year, he wove his way southwest, again avoiding houses and people except for a brief stop at a household that welcomed and fed him in previous years. Then he continued on his way, avoiding people and crossing divided Highway 53 in the wee hours. Today, Cal again was deep in the woods (photo).
How little the world knows about the minds of bears. How much we have to learn. Cal is just another example of a radio-collared bear defying the common misconceptions about what makes bears nuisances.
While we were in the field, Lily’s fans were working hard for bears in other ways.
They further extended the lead of Bear Head Lake State Park to win $100,000 in the Coca-Cola Parks contest. Earlier today June moved to the state park—perhaps to a den site.
Lily’s fans also started the hard climb toward getting Ely Schools into the top 20 in the Kohl Care School context for $500,000. With 9 days left to vote on this, go to each of these links, vote five times for each of the two schools. We believe helping these schools will help educate local people about bears, will show the value of the radio-collared bears, and will help protect them from hunters.
Comments I heard today from newspaper editors show they are extremely respectful of the power of Lily’s fans and how much you are helping the region where these radio-collared bears live.
At the same time, you are working to make the Education Outreach program a success. Teams are forming to tackle problems as they come up. Corelyn is overseeing everything, and talented educators are stepping up and doing what is needed to make their areas the best they can be.
Thank you for the great amount you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center