Lily and Hope - The Black Bear and Cub

Thanks for all the updates Anne-Marie

Everything crossed that Hope is okay - where oh where is Lily, poor little Hope needs her.

Lai

Thanks Doogs!! hehe!! Love that pic of Millie!!

A little while ago I mentioned Bearwalker of the Northwoods. I found these clips from it if anyone wanted to look: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00np2gk

Picture of Hope here!! She looks well

https://www.facebook.com/lily.the.black.bear?v=wall&story_fbid=122299274472404#!/photo.php?pid=6196057&id=263755115498

Me again, I'm fed up of filing! Anyway, this pdf has been posted on the facebook update. Worth I read I think (managed the first couple of pages)
http://www.bearstudy.org/website/images/stories/Publications/Aiding_the_Wild_Survival_of_Orphaned_Bear_Cubs.pdf

thanks for the link

Lai

Honestly, these damn bears have had me an emotional wreck the last few days lol ! I am so in love with Lily and Hope and soooo glad that Hope is doing okay - great to see all the videos and pictures in one place - love it

LT x

Know the feeling LT
Thanks for the Links AM, I'm going to have to wait till the weekends over to catch up on them. Work always seems to get in the way
WS

Update from 4th June

A most encouraging day



Hope high in a red pine - June 4, 2010Seeing little Hope up the tree at the feeding site this morning was a huge relief. And seeing her sleeping at the same tree this evening was confirmation. The plan is working. Our goal, of course, is to give little Hope a helping hand until natural food becomes more abundant and she can make it on her own. It won’t take much on our part the way berries are coming along. Strawberries are ripe. Blueberries, cherries, and juneberries—enlarging rapidly with the rain and warmth—only need to ripen. It looks like a reasonable year for bear food is developing. We’re even seeing some little hazelnuts coming on.

Hope is still vulnerable. She’s at the age of sleeping the deep sleep on an infant. That’s where Lily’s keen senses are supposed to come in. Hopefully, Hope will usually sleep high in a tree.

Should we put Hope in captivity to make her totally safe? That would ruin her life. Mentally and physically, bears are made to live wild and free. With all their wild instincts stifled by the confines of a pen, that is not what they evolved to be. Even the best captive enclosure, like the North American Bear Center’s world class facility with all its forest, waterfalls, wild food, and pond is a distant second to life in the wild. The Bear Center is not an option for Hope because it has all the bears it should have and Hope showed us today she is doing fine.

The only humane option is to leave little Hope wild and free. She is eating and drinking, playing and sleeping, and looking much better than we dared hope for. Today was most encouraging.

Lily is fine, too. Her milk is about gone. Sue had a hard time finding a breast today. They are no longer swollen with milk. The lumps from the clogged milk ducts are disappearing without any mastitis. We think this young mother will do better the next time around, which could be next year.

We’re looking forward to what Hope and Lily will show us throughout this year. Knowing the details of their lives is unprecedented, and it opens possibilities for a better understanding of their behavior, including the split. We’ll be watching for signs of estrus, documenting Lily’s liaisons with males, and recording her interactions, if any, with Hope. At this moment, Lily is roaming widely like the other non-lactating adult females.

By following the course we’re taking, we’re turning a near tragedy into a learning experience. We’ll all continue to learn together. Meanwhile, we’ll wait and hope together as the story takes its twists and turns, but so far, it couldn’t be going better considering the circumstances.

Lily and Hope are doing a tremendous amount for bears. They are undoubtedly doing more to raise world awareness about bears than any research bears ever have. Benefits extend from the black bears that live among us to the endangered bears of other countries. The more people learn about bears, the more willing they become to coexist with them. People will not coexist with animals they fear. Lily and Hope are showing the world what black bears are really like—and that is anything but the scary animals shown on sensationalized TV programs, shown in hunting magazines, and in taxidermy. For once, people are tuned in to real bears. People cannot do any better than learning directly from the bears themselves. And it would hard to find better teachers than Lily and Hope.

We received another report of a Juliet sighting. It came while Sue was replenishing Hope's feeding stations and Lynn was replacing June's GPS unit. Hopefully next time she's sighted we'll be able to react and get her re-collared.

Thank you again for your contributions and everything you did to help things turn out this well.

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

Lai

Bless her little heart. She is so adorable! It makes me feel though to think she's out there by herself.

I am so pleased that Hope is alive, but i am so sad that she is alone, she looks so vulnerable. Poor little Hope all on her own.

Lai

Thanks for the update Lai and the video SM. God bless her she really is a little sweetie. I am in love hehe.

I agree that she looks vulnerable but what heartens me is she also looks content and well fed and I really believe that our little Hope is a feisty wee thing. :)

Everything crossed that she will make it through this difficult period and become a beautiful strong bear just like her mum !

LT x

Lai thanks for the update. I feel more heartened today with what they have written, it does look as if they are just giving Hope the little boost until all the fruit rippens for her to feed herself and make it on her own, god willing. Lets just hope she eats enough for hibernation and does keep sleeping high in the treees as Lily is not around to watch out for her.

SM gorgeous video, Hope does appear settled and relaxed which is a good sign, she also looked a good weight didn't she, so fingers crossed this little bear could turn it all around.

littlewid-x-

Update on Hope - 5th June


- June 5, 2010We saw Hope twice today and she’s strong and healthy. She’s a very different cub than she was just a week ago when we were so worried about her. Then Lily’s milk had dried up and Hope was failing. Now she has regained most of her strength and is active, playful, and staying safe high in trees when she needs to. We received a radio-collar for her today and are working at establishing the trust we need to put it on her.

We also saw Lily but not close enough to examine her. She was on a mission. She wasn’t interested in food. She ignored “It’s me, bear.” Instead, she quickly went about sniffing branches, tree trunks, the ground, and the air. As she walked, she held her head high, biting the air as bears do when they want maximum information. When biting the air, they are using the vomeronasal organ in the roof of their mouth in addition to the nose. She ignored us, moved down a hill, crossed a beaver dam, and disappeared. She is covering areas outside her territory as well as within her territory but has not been back to the area where she left Hope.

We wanted to examine her for signs of estrus as a clue to her travels. Is she searching for a male or exploring possibilities for territorial expansion? Next year, she could have two or three cubs and will need plenty of space to forage.

Recent newspaper articles have questioned our research and motives. With popularity comes criticism—it’s a given. David Garshelis has worked long and hard for endangered bears around the world. In light of his statements to the newspapers, perhaps he could use the Bear Center’s popularity for the benefit of endangered bears. We’ve long wanted to incorporate his knowledge about endangered Asian bears into the Bear Center and approached him about it before.

This could be a win-win situation. It won’t take away from our efforts to foster an understanding of the bears that live among us here in North America, but rather it will add a dimension we have wanted. The information would also go onto bear.org where it would have increased visibility. Thanks to Lily’s fans and many students, troops, and wildlife officials, our website has had 6,307,090 visits since we placed the Den Cam on January 8, 2010. This compares with 195,306 visits for the same period in 2009. Our simple research project to learn about den behavior miraculously turned into a major educational opportunity that is helping the Bear Center expand its mission.

Thank you for your contributions to the matching opportunity!

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

Lai

Lai thank you for the update. It does sound as if Lily could be on a mission to find a mate as she seems to have no interest in finding little Hope.
It would be nice to see if we can track down what David Garshelis has been saying in the press about Lily and Hope and also if he will eventually work in cooperation with the Bear Centre. I will try and have a look for any of his articles later.
Once they have the radio collar on Hope it will be easier for them to keep track of her and as she appears to be determined to survive on her own it will be a good thing, they will know where she is at all times.
I was pleased to read yesterday that they had no plans of taking her to the bear centre as a captive bear, Hope deserves to be a free bear in the wild as she was born to be.

littlewid-x-

I so agree Littlewid. I would hate to think of poor little Hope being in captivity, she deserves to be free and if she survives on her own with a little help from her friends then that is fantastic.

Lai

I completely agree with Widdy and Lai - that little bear was born free and deserves to live free in the wild. I would hate to see her in captivity even it was the only way she could survive. To be honest, if it came to that, I would rather she died a natural death in the wild.

But that doesn't look like its going to happen. That little cub is strong and feisty and I look forward to following her adventures for a long, long time !

LT x

Update June 6, 2010 – 8:34 PM CDT
Today at 02:51
Better than we hoped


Hope sleeping high in a birch tree - June 6, 2010
After the emotional roller coaster of the past couple weeks, we’re a little on edge, even when things seem okay. We know how quickly things can change. So when we got to Hope’s tree and found her missing, we worried—even though the food was gone.

We went back 5 hours later and were relieved. There was little Hope sleeping soundly and safely high in a tree. The food we left in the morning was mostly gone. The red grapes and blueberries were gone. Most of the formula was gone. We had scattered more hazelnuts than she could possibly eat, so a good number of those were left, too.

On the first trip, we had forgotten the card reader that lets us see the pictures from the trail camera. On the second trip, we at least had a spare SD card to swap. When we got back to the Research Center, we saw the story in pictures. Hope had been to the feeding site a couple times last night just

Hope at the feeding station - June 6, 2010
after dark. This morning—even though we didn’t see her—she must have been close by. She came for the food 17 minutes after we left. She returned 2 hours later for more—carrying the container of mealworms around back of the bed tree where she apparently ate them. No wonder she was fast asleep when we arrived again at 1 PM! She barely stirred while we were there, but triggered the trail camera 5 times between 1:36 and 2:04 PM as she fed.

When we went to replenish the food this evening, Hope was nowhere in sight. We expect she was nearby and look forward to checking the trail camera pictures tomorrow morning to learn the story.

We’re looking forward to Hope answering so many questions as she grows up. Here are a few topics for starters.

Diet. Without a mother to teach her, will she have the same diet as other bears in the area? Actually, everything we have seen in our decades of research says that mothers teaching their cubs what to eat is a misconception. We’re aware of what’s written about that, but wait to see what Hope shows us. So far, hazelnuts and blueberries are the only wild foods we have given her. The rest she will have to discover on her own.

Land tenure. Will she eventually carve out part of Lily’s territory as her own as typically happens with females that stay with their mothers the full 16-17 months?

Travel. We know that a few mothers take their cubs on trips over 20 miles to oak stands and other food sources and that the cubs remember the best locations and return to them as adults. Will Hope travel long distances or be more a stay-at-home bear?

Social skill. Will Hope seek out other bears to wrestle and play? Personalities vary on this.

Hibernation. We know orphaned cubs can make perfectly good dens even though their mothers would normally make them. What kind of den will Hope make?

Relations with Lily. What will happen when Hope and Lily next meet? Will Lily chase her like a mother chases a yearling she has separated from? Will Lily welcome her like she did 5 days after the first separation but perhaps separate again? Will Lily try to kill Hope like some mothers have done to strange cubs they have found in their territory? Will Hope be afraid of Lily like Lily was of June (her mother)? Will Lily come across Hope’s scent, recognize it, but ignore it as something inconsequential to her new life?

Mixed age litter. It’s possible that Hope could rejoin Lily for hibernation. One set of yearlings that had separated from their mother in spring at the usual 16-17 months of age rejoined her in mid-summer and hibernated with her. Although that mother did not produce cubs, a possible explanation of mixed-age litters might involve mothers separating from a cub or cubs, mating, and then rejoining the cubs.

Being able to observe the study bears while being essentially ignored has answered so many questions. Now, GPS technology is adding detail to their movement data whether we are there to see it or not. The combination of GPS and observation opens the door to answering most behavior questions. Our GPS data is not stored in the collar for downloading months later. It sends the bear’s location to a Google Earth map on our computer every few minutes around the clock, alerting us to situations that require observation to understand. We are seeing details of bear life beyond anything possible before.

We need to get a radio-collar on little Hope soon. We noticed that some of you were worried what would happen if we put a radio-collar the size of Lily’s on her. You were right to worry about that. Hope would die with that big thing with its 5-year batteries plus a GPS unit. It’s not a problem for big Lily. For little Hope, we have one that weighs less than 4 ounces.

Actually, in our quest for kinder, gentler research, radio-collaring is a topic we’ve addressed. We’ve made adjustments in design to make the old collars comfortable to the point of being ignored, like a person wearing a watch, and we refuse to use some of the bulky new collars with so many gadgets that have not yet been made small enough for good use. We also do not put radio-collars on most big males because many have necks that are larger than their heads. That means a biologist would have to put a collar on so tight that the bears could not curl up into a normal hibernating position and would have to spend the winter with its head and nose exposed to den temperatures that are every bit as cold as ambient temperatures. Further, we would have to tranquilize a bear to put a collar on that tight, and we don’t want to risk the lives of bears by tranquilizing them. Instead of injurious traps and potentially lethal tranqulizers, we use trust and a handful of treats. We put the radio-collars on loosely enough that the bears don’t object. We don’t want to destroy their trust in us.

We noticed that Lily’s new fans are asking some of the same questions that most people, including some biologists, would ask or assume if they didn’t have the education that Lily’s older fans have—questions about trusting bears going up to hunters, becoming nuisances, attacking people, behaving abnormally, etc. Those are all addressed in the older updates back in January and February. All the updates are available at http://www.bear.org/website/lily-a-hope/research-updates.html. The idea that touching a cub makes its mother reject it because of the human smell is another of the very widespread myths. On questions about feeding, the recent paper “Does diversionary feeding create nuisance bears and jeopardize public safety?” is worth reading. You can find it at http://www.bearstudy.org/website/images/stories/Publications/diversionary_feeding_of_black_bears_9_june_2009.pdf

We feel good that Hope is sleeping safely in trees and knows where the food is. We feel good that wild berries are starting to ripen. Things are going well. There is a lot she can show us as she grows up and has cubs of her own.

Lynn is getting serious about writing a book. The working title is “My view of black bears and how it has changed.”

Thank you for your contributions. With the 2 to 1 offer, you are making a triple difference this month. Thank you so much.

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

I hope they get that little collar on her soon!! And how wonderful if she was to hibernate with Lily. What a relief that would be for all of us.

A couple of gorgeous photos here of her as well: https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=6223089&op=1&view=all&subj=454179999477&aid=-1&auser=0&oid=454179999477&id=263755115498&fbid=431330125498
But she does look so small! As long as she stays up the trees to sleep I'll be happy.

Thanks for the update Anne-Marie - things are looking up for little Hope

Lai

Anne-Marie, thank you for the update. Things really are looking much better for little Hope.
It is nice to know that the questions they are looking for answers too are questions that can be answered from a distance and not from Hope being in captivity, that is a comfort.
I also like that fact that Hope seems to have an inbuilt security by sleeping high in the tree, something not taught to her by Lily, its a natural instinct.....Hope is a clever girl.

littlewid-x-

Update on Hope - 7th June

Hope is becoming a bear



Hope is doing way more than we would have thought for her age. We went to her tree and feeding site this morning. The food had disappeared overnight, but she was nowhere to be seen. We replaced the food, which is now all being weighed because we thought it was her only food right now and we wanted to see how much she ate in a day. We knew the trail cams would show if she got all the food.

We went back out at 1:15 PM. All the food was again gone. The trail cam showed she was the one who got it all. But where was she? Then we saw droppings. One had bits of nuts and mealworm skins—both foods we gave her. The other scat was vegetation. She had been a busy little cub off feeding on her own.



Sue stayed—hoping to begin building trust. Hours passed. Finally, at 6:45 PM, Hope came running—at least until she saw Sue. She stopped, veered out around, and went for the food. Every move Sue made meant a leap to the red pine for Hope. Sue slowly edged in and showed her a bottle with formula. Hope licked the nipple but that was all. Sue dumped it into the plastic container. Hope ate all the formula – as well as all the blueberries, pecans, and mealworms.

We assumed that she would then be so full she would climb a tree and take a nap. Wrong. She set about foraging. A short way off, she clawed open a log and licked up something Sue couldn’t see—probably a grub or some ant pupae.

Hope is getting stronger each day and is acting like a very independent, busy bear. All faster than we expected. This is all valuable information for people wondering what to do with orphaned cubs. Do all have to be taken to rehabilitation centers where their learning is limited to their pen? Or might some be better off in a temporary pen in the woods where they can learn where the formula is and then have the pen dismantled so they can roam and return? Just a thought, but it certainly would let the cubs learn a lot more than they could in a pen. There are stories of pen-reared cubs that didn’t know enough to climb trees to escape when they finally were released at a year and a half of age. We have yet to see how this all turns out, but we’re thinking that a little supplemental food to help a cub to independence in the wild is a win-win compromise at this point. It reminds us of raising fawns in the old days. We put up a pen and fed them with bottles. As soon as they learned about the bottles, we took down the pen and let them free. They came when we clanked the bottles together. They ate mostly wild food and eventually weaned themselves from the bottles.

Lily was busy traveling and foraging about 3 miles southwest of Hope and Grandma June passed by about three quarters of a mile to the west. At this moment, June is about to hit the 8-hours-old scent trail of Lily. The computer will tell us if she keeps going or turns and follows Lily. On this dry day, the scent trail should be good for about 12 hours. Lily and June were foraging like Hope was, but on a grander scale probably. We’re moving toward getting a tiny radio-collar on Hope so we can learn more about her landscape use at her tender age.

It also would be nice if she would step on a bathroom scale out in the woods one of these days. She had a great start getting all the milk. Then she had a setback as we know. Now she is getting a lot of formula, grapes, blueberries, mealworms, and nuts in addition to wild food. It’s hard to hold that bear down. Her weight is probably comparable to cubs with their mothers at this point.

With all your creativity out there, do any names for books pop into mind? I’ve thought for years, and the best I came up with was “My view of Black Bears and how it’s changed.” At first, I was going to write “Walking with bears” and then Terry Debruyn used that title for his great book. Then I thought of “Brother Bear” and a movie came out with that name. Then I thought of another title, and someone used that one. This time I’m going to write it before someone else can grab it—whatever the title ends up being.

Thank you for your contributions!

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

Lai

What a little cutie

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=6236294&id=263755115498&fbid=431705600498

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=6238493&op=1&view=all&subj=454673419477&aid=-1&auser=0&oid=454673419477&id=263755115498

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=6238494&op=1&view=all&subj=454673419477&aid=-1&auser=0&oid=454673419477&id=263755115498&fbid=431773955498

Her ears really make me laugh though, bless her!!

Thanks AM thats great to read, she is doing really well aster all that has happened, and no matter what the outcome. I think its right that she gets her chance of liveing as she should do in the wild
WS