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Help Protect Radio-collared Bears

NEW — Protection for Radio-collared Bears: the issues — NEW

There is More You Can Do to Help!

We have an urgent and immediate need for your support!  As you will read in the Daily Research Updates below, Dr. Rogers provided the new DNR Commission and his staff with powerful information supporting protection for radio collared bears.  The former Governor and newly sworn in Governor as well as many other officials received hundreds of letters from fans of Lily the Black Bear with pleas to provide the radio-collared research bears protection from hunting.  All these efforts seem to have been in vain.  On February 28, DNR Commissioner Landwehr announced he would not protect radio-collared bears.  Our only option is to seek protection via legislature.  We need your support in the form of letter to key legislators.

History:

A history of the need for protection, efforts to gain protection, and the MN DNR Commissioner's decision against protection are included in the updates below.

Media Contacts:  http://www.bear.org/website/images/stories/Documents/Minnesota_Media_Contacts.pdf

Minnesota Residents:

If you live in Minnesota, we encourage you to contact your local legislative representatives (in addition to the individuals listed below) by letter, email, or phone.  Contact information for all Minnesota Senators and Representative can be found at http://www.leg.state.mn.us/leg/legdir.aspx.

Everyone Looking to Help:

Representative Denny McNamara, Chair Environment and Natural Resources Committee
375 State Office Building 
100 Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
St Paul, MN 55155 651-296-3135 rep.denny.mcnamara@house.mn
Representative Denny McNamara is Chair of the Environment and Natural Resources committee.  Any bill we introduce in the House would be introduced through his committee, and bills in that committee don’t get heard unless the Chair says so.   He said he wouldn’t be interested in hearing a bill on the bears unless there is a public outcry.
Representative David Dill
273 State Office Building 
100 Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
St Paul, MN 55155 651-296-2190 or 800-339-0466 rep.david.dill@house.mn

A key person is our local Representative David Dill.  Without his support, nothing will happen.  He will say what kind of bill, if any, we can introduce.  He would especially be influenced by letters from Minnesota hunters.
Senator Thomas M Bakk
100 Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
State Office Building, Room 147
St Paul, MN  55155-1206
651-296-8881
sen.tom.bakk@senate.mn
 Another key person is our local Senator Tom Bakk.  It is important for the legislators who represent the area where the research is located to hear from supporters.
Representative Phyllis Kahn
353 State Office Building 
100 Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
St Paul, MN 55155 
651-296-4257
rep.phyllis.kahn@house.mn

A spark plug in this effort is Representative Phyllis Kahn.  She is willing to author a bill in conjunction with Representative Dill and any others you can put pressure on to get involved.   Representative Kahn will read your letters, gauge what we can do, and pass your letters on to whomever she thinks needs to see them.
Senator Bill Ingebrigtsen, Chair
Environment and Natural Resources Capitol Building, Room 303 75 Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
St Paul, MN 55155-1606 
651-297-8063
sen.bill.ingebrigtsen@senate.mn

Although we don’t have a senator to author a bill yet, Senator Bill Ingebrigtsen is the Chair of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee where it would be heard.
Commissioner Tom Landwehr
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources 
500 Lafayette Road 
St Paul, MN 55155-4040 
Tom.Landwehr@state.mn.us
On February 28, 2011, MN DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr announced he would not protect radio-collared bears from hunting.  Let him know what you think of his decision against protection.
Governor Mark Dayton
Office of the Governor 
130 State Capitol 
75 Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
St Paul, MN 55155 
http://mn.gov/governor/contact-us/form/index.jsp
Governor Mark Dayton appointed Tom Landwehr and DNR Commissioner and left the decision-making on protection of radio-collared bears in Landwehr’s hands.  Let Governor Dayton know what you think of Landwehr’s decision.

Why protection of radio-collared bears is needed now

  1. The DNR asking hunters not to shoot radio-collared bears has not worked.  The Wildlife Research Institute has lost 6 radio-collared research bears since 2005—including two in 2010.

  2. Responsible hunters say shooting radio-collared bears should be illegal.  They say it is unfair to be asked to pass up a radio-collared trophy only to have the next hunter legally shoot it and be lauded because he turned the collar in.

  3. The dozen radio-collared bears near Ely are a tiny fraction of the 20,000 bears in Minnesota.

  4. Minnesota’s bear studies are now about how bears live—not how they die.  Radio-collared bears with data histories are too valuable to science to be shot like any other bear.

  5. In the trust-based studies around Ely, the loss of any radio-collared bear in the single bear clan being studied is a huge setback.  A collar cannot simply be placed on another bear.  This study is providing more data on black bear behavior, ecology, social organization, language, and bear-human relations than any bear study ever has.  The data histories on the older bears in that study make them irreplaceable in my lifetime.  The data from these bears becomes more valuable each year.

  6. The dozen radio-collared bears around Ely are part of the biggest public bear education program ever done. Through social networking, these bears have acquired a following of over a quarter million (over 128 thousand on Facebook alone) that follow them on Den Cams and daily research updates on bear.org.

  7. The dozen radio-collared bears around Ely are part of the biggest classroom bear education program ever done.  Over 500 schools follow these bears daily in their classrooms.  Teachers and students watch the live Den Cam and read the daily research updates on bear.org.  Individual radio-collared bears are part of their science, reading, and math classes along with the lesson plans, traveling Black Bear Boxes, and other educational materials now available on bear.org (click on Education).

  8. The dozen radio-collared bears around Ely have generated a huge amount of good will.  Their quarter million followers want to help the area where “their” bears live.  They have donated thousands to the Ely Area Food Shelf, voted Ely the “Coolest small town in America,” produced $20,000 for Ely’s Schools, produced $100,000 for Bear Head State Park as well as $600,000 to reduce debt for Ely’s North American Bear Center.

  9. The radio-collared bears around Ely boost Minnesota tourism.

    1. The annual Lilypad Picnic alone draws hundreds of tourists to Ely for extended vacations.

    2. Thousands come to Ely specifically to see the North American Bear Center where the radio-collared bears are the basis for most of the exhibits and keeping those exhibits updated.  Attendance in 2010 was 33,843.

    3. The radio-collared bears are the subjects of a continuing series of TV documentaries, each with audiences of over a hundred million.  These documentaries (4 in the last two years) advertise the area in a way that could not be bought.

  10. In summary, Minnesota’s radio-collared bears have become too valuable to science, education, tourism, and regional economics to be killed like any other bears.  This feeling is supported by the Ely City Council, 68 of 70 Ely business owners, the Ely Chamber of Commerce, nearly 4,000 petitioners, 679 of 685 people who wrote letters to Governor Pawlenty, ~800 of ~900 people who responded to the Duluth News Tribune’s opinion poll, etc.