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Hope gets braver

Hope gets braver

April 20, 2010 – 7:32 PM CDT

This early spring continues to teach and amaze us.  We wondered how much of the spring bird and plant activity is governed by temperature, sunlight, and internal clocks.  With trees blossoming and leafing out so early, and with vegetation emerging from the forest floor, we fear we are headed to a disastrous year of scarce bear food.  Trees and shrubs that produce bear foods are likely to blossom so early that the blossoms will get killed by frost.  We can only watch and hope.  Things won’t be as bad for bears getting into trouble here in the central study area.  People who feed bears help keep them from looking elsewhere and breaking into homes and becoming nuisances around garbage cans, etc.  People who do diversionary feeding are likely to see more bears than usual.  It may be a year that tests hypotheses and reveals new information.

But for now, early emerging vegetation is providing food for bears weeks before it normally would be available.

Lily & Hope - April 20, 2010Nevertheless, Lily and Hope are staying put where they’ve been for the last few days.  We checked in on them today to see what they were up to.  Lily came over, but Hope stayed back 30 yards, squawking about being alone.  Lily went back to her 3 times.  The third time, Hope tagged along with her almost to us.  Then Lily and Hope left together with Hope making sweet cooing sounds (see photo).  We left, too.   Hope is not ready for us to begin traveling with her and Lily yet, but we know the areas where they are bedding and can return later to check for droppings to analyze and for evidence of their activities.  As Hope learns to accept us, we can spend more time with Lily and Hope and get more detailed data.  We are still gaining the Hope’s trust.

June and her yearlings have explored much of June’s territory and this evening took their first break from the boonies and briefly visited a feeding station, which is part of June’s territory, too.    GPS locations showed their movements, and we called the feeding station owner and let him know to expect a visit.

A number of people are keeping their eyes open for Juliet and Braveheart so we can put their radio-collars back on them before we lose too much data.

We made good progress on the polar bear exhibit today and are looking forward to showing it to everyone who comes to the Lilypad Picnic July 30-August 1.

Thank you again for your contributions.  No new video today.

—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, North American Bear Center


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