Bird Cams Around the World

this is just an Awe moment. My favorite part of last video was the milk all over Hopes face.

In every cloud ,there is indeed a silver lining.

Just wonderful news.
thanks Pat



Are you the pat that knows my friend Diana in Ontario and had lunch with her.???

Unfortunately, I haven't followed this story very well, but it sure was a blessing to read that mother and daughter have reunited. Awww, that nursing segment was too precious for words.

I get the updates on facebook, and the reunion has been so incredible. I am overjoyed they have found each other again...so much better for Hope! She's not gonna let Lily leave again after her experience. The pictures of the two of them are just adorable

Today I see the post at NABC for yesterday states that when they checked, Lily was a quarter of a mile away from Hope just before dark Saturday night. I hope the GPS is wrong. I asked the biologists I work with about Lily having abandoned her before. We are wondering if there is a genetic problem with Lily or could the estrogen level with only one cub nursing, still not be enough to keep her hormones at a level where she displays the maternal concerns for Hope. Maybe when they have 2 or 3 cubs, the level stays higher from more nursing? Either way I am hoping that the morning will not find poor Hope alone again. But in retrospect, even on the videos, yes Lily played with her, but it is always Hope watching, and running to catch up when Lily just walks off. I am glad they placed food out for Hope previously, and responded to the most of the public's wish to see help for Hope. And I am also glad to see they could finally collared her. My biggest concern is not actually food anymore, because Hope does forage and Lily just did show her more areas and more types of berries to eat, etc. I am concerned with Hope being out there alone with large MALE bears who most certainly do kill cubs. Studies have shown what a low percentage of cubs survive the first year, mainly due to being hit by a car, or a male bear killing them, and sometimes even eating them. I do not know why NABC has not addressed this concern. I am sure if the public knew this, they would want Hope taken in if Lily continues to abandon her. Lets keep our fingers crossed little Hope outsmarts them all and tracks Lily on her own now. She is so beautiful and determined, and strong, she will surely scowl at Lily for leaving! I also want to see Hope relaxed, playful, and sleeping deeply with the comfort of knowing someone is looking out for her. The thought of her scared, and running up the tree scared even while eating, is just too sad for such a special, unique character of a cub that she is.

Glad to see Hope was persistent and tracked down Lily. But I am beginning to think the biologists are right. When she forces Lily to nurse, at first Lily is motherly. Then it wanes. I cant believe she actually chased and tree'd Hope 3 times. Something is wrong with the hormones I think. Lets hope for the best.

Back to Normal

July 19, 2010 – 9:45 PM CDT

Lily & Hope in birch - July 19, 2010Hope and Lily are together. Hope is not as frantic as before. The two bears just hung out, playing hard. They traveled and produced scats full of berries, but we haven’t been able to analyze the scats fully yet. New video from today posted at http://www.bear.org/website/lily-a-hope ... clips.html.

Elsewhere in the bear world here, Juliet is ending the day with all three cubs after being separated from one of them for a few hours yesterday and one of them a couple hours today.

RC, the 11-year-old aunt of Lily, also was separated from one of her cubs for a several hours today. In both cases, the cubs tracked down their mothers, bawling, like Hope did when she got on her mother’s trail. Temporary separations of mothers and cubs like this are fairly common.

So, an eventful day ended up peaceful for all.

Thank you again for all you do. Every week when Lynn stops in the Bear Center there is a new treat to help devour with gusto. The shed looks terrific even before being painted.

And we all are on the verge of something big. Teachers are enthusiastically emerging to create a major outreach to classrooms. We believe that making factual information about bears readily available to classrooms will displace the current teaching of fear and misconceptions. There is a huge and urgent need for teaching factual information, starting with pre-schoolers. People must learn the truth about bears if we are to achieve any semblance of coexistence. People will not coexist with animals they fear. Misconceptions are the bears’ enemy.

You have become a major force for bears. Many of the teachers among you have become passionate for bears after watching Lily and Hope. They have much to offer. Together, we will create teaching units appropriate for various grades in accordance with state guidelines, also called GLE’s (Grade Level Expectations). With the help of Lily and Hope’s followers, truth will win out over misconceptions. Bears everywhere will be the winners. This outreach will initially be to classrooms in English-speaking countries but eventually will be translated into other languages. A group of teachers is beginning this effort by developing a form for teachers to fill out and submit with basic information. More to follow.

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

Foraging big time

July 20, 2010 – 9:27 PM CDT

Hope - July 16, 2010 Lily and Hope are foraging big time. Little Hope’s scat collected yesterday was mostly blueberries and raspberries and a little red osier dogwood, alder-leaf buckthorn, and wild sarsaparilla. Lily’s contained wild sarsaparilla, blueberries and raspberries and a little alder-leafed buckthorn. It also contained unknown vegetation.

When feeding on berries, mothers and cubs usually forage apart to be most efficient. They are in a roadless area that has forest and an old clearcut. This clearcut is used so frequently by bears that we are trying to learn the exact history of it. (photo take July 16, 20100

The classroom outreach project is gathering steam under the guidance of Corelyn Senn and several teachers.

Thank you for all you are doing to help in so many ways, including to educate.

The countdown to the Lilypad Picnic continues.

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

Lily, Hope, Confidence, and Education

July 21, 2010 – 9:55 PM CDT

Lily and Hope are together, out in the woods, foraging away. We watch as Lily’s GPS locations move across the map on our computer – even at this late hour. We know the areas well and figure Lily and Hope are foraging on ant pupae and a variety of berries. We checked their radio-signals to ensure they’re still together. They likely will bed for the night soon.

Hope is so different with Lily. We mentioned how individual personalities become evident in dens by 2-3 months of age. However, behavior is also influenced by learning in animals as intelligent as bears. So we wondered if Hope’s six weeks alone would leave her more self-reliant and confident, or if it would make her hyper-vigilant and unusually defensive. The latter seems to be the case, although it is impossible to say from a sample size of one how much of this is due to her genetic personality and how much is from her situation.

Alone, Hope is hyper-vigilant. She stays near trees and leaps up them in response to any unidentified sound. With Lily, she is calmer and less defensive; but even then, she seems more defensive toward us than most other cubs are.

However, there is another dimension. Despite Hope’s defensiveness about being touched, she sometimes wants to play with us. Perhaps wrongly, we resist the temptation to engage her in play, fearing that she might bond too closely with us. Her desire to play with us nearly disappears when she is with Lily. Instead, she engages Lily in relentless play, and we are happy to see her release her desire to play with the abandon you have seen in the videos.

Other cubs show no tendency to play with us. At the same time, they are less defensive about being touched.

Although questions remain about the effects of nature versus nurture on Hope, one thing is certain. Lily and Hope have opened the door to something big for bears. Classrooms that have followed these bears these past 6 months (Hope’s 6 month birthday is this Thursday the 22nd) have become a force for education about bears. On behalf of the North American Bear Center, Corelyn Senn is now working with many teachers to create bear curricula in keeping with state guidelines for the various grade levels.

Corelyn will soon be posting a questionnaire on bear.org to survey teachers who have used the den cam, the updates, and other bear.org material in classrooms. The questionnaire will ask teachers to communicate their needs for developing bear teaching units, contribute ideas, and share successful teaching methods. The goal is for all to benefit as factual bear units are developed. As things progress, Corelyn will form committees to work on written material, DVD/audio, technology, bear boxes/hands-on material, and more. If you are interested, please email Corelyn directly at [email protected]. This could be one of the best things to emerge from Lily and Hope. We believe truth and reality can replace the misconceptions and excessive fear that are commonly taught in schools today.

Thank you for all you are doing to help bears.

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

Hope’s 6-month birthday, and misconceptions

July 22, 2010 – 9:19 PM CDT

Hope brushing flies off faceIt’s Hope’s 6 month birthday. Her Facebook fans flooded the wall this evening with Happy Birthday wishes. We’re grateful to all of you for your support in bringing her through some tough times and watching her emerge so well and providing so much good information. We all deserve to celebrate. Best of all, Lily and Hope are together at this moment and doing fine. And they are doing it on their own. The last supplemental food (formula) we gave Hope was on July 11, eleven days ago.

We are looking forward to meeting as many of you as we can at the Lilypad Picnic next week.

The Black Bear Field Course that ended on Wednesday was a fun time of replacing misconceptions with facts. The 8 participants were from England, New Zealand, Australia, California, and New York. They learned mostly from the bears themselves. The bears refuted many widely accepted misconceptions. Here are some of the observations they made.

1. June is perhaps the most habituated, food-conditioned bear in the study. Those are jargon words that simply mean she is comfortable with people and used to getting food from them. If she wanted to, she could spend all her time eating high quality foods at the dozen feeding stations residents operate in the study area. Conventional knowledge would say that she should be dependent upon those easy handouts, that she should be maximizing caloric intake and minimizing energy expended to get it, that she should be forgetting how to forage for wild foods, and that she should be a lazy, obese bear. What did the participants find? We saw that June prefers wild foods and spends nearly all her time working hard for ant pupae, vegetation, wild berries, and early-ripening hazelnuts. The first two days, we couldn’t hike to her because she was too deep in roadless areas. Finally on the third day, we caught up to her in a cedar swamp and joined her for a couple hours. Participants remarked that she was a lean, athletic looking bear with a sleek new coat. They remarked that her coat smelled clean and that her breath had no odor. Participants remarked that they had always heard that if a bear got food at someone’s house, it would go from house to house looking for more. They found June deep in the forest. The participants learned a totally different view of bears than they had ever heard before.
2. The biggest revelation came from the huge male bears they met. Conventional knowledge would assume that these powerful bears that carry scars from many mating battles should be used to having their way, have short tempers, and be among the most aggressive bears in the population. Instead, the participants found that these bears were the wariest, most timid bears they met or were the calmest, most trusting bears they met, depending upon the individual. None fit the stereotype.
3. Another revelation was about mothers with cubs. They had all heard the admonition “Never get between a mother and her cubs.” They met nervous mothers and they met calm, trusting mothers, but again, none fit the stereotype. They learned that the notion of defensive, attacking mothers is mostly a grizzly bear thing, not a black bear thing.
4. Another revelation was the few bear problems there are in the area. Contrary to conventional knowledge that “A fed bear is a dead bear,” people have been feeding bears in the study area for over 40 years and have fewer bear problems than elsewhere. That’s one of the things we are studying here. Most people believe that bears that get human food will become nuisances and jeopardize public safety. The fact is that compared with surrounding areas, this area has fewer bear problems, and it has no house break-ins and no attacks. The data show that habituation and food-conditioning do not create nuisance bears—hunger does.

The participants had to sit through a bear biology lecture, but otherwise, they learned directly from the bears themselves, and that’s the kind of learning that changes attitudes. They saw it with their own eyes and drew their own conclusions.

We’re not advocating feeding bears, but we are saying that most of what people believe about feeding bears is not supported by science. There is a great need to study the bear-human interface that is so important to bear management and has received so little actual study. The amazing results produced by diversionary feeding studies show that this non-lethal way of resolving bear-human conflict should not be dismissed without due consideration.

Thank you for all you do for bears, bear research, and bear education.

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