Bears in the Schools

a new cub crawling on Hope's chest

In Wilmington, North Carolina, a school announcement said, “Lily gave birth to at least two more cubs, and the students will be “collecting data” on their observations of the new cubs.  The students are learning the truth about black bears and becoming “bear biologists.”  The full story is at http://www.nhcs.net/news/roe01.htm .

The word from Lubbock, Texas, is that, “We have 37 elementary schools which follow Lily and Hope.  Many of our schools were watching live when Hope was born and this experience has meant so much to them.  I have the pleasure of working with all the children in our district. As a district administrator children will come and talk to me and I will ask them what they want to be when they grow up and so often they say a "bear scientist".  Lily and Hope are making a profound difference in thousands of students' lives.  Every day, the students, teachers and I learn from them.”

From Nassau, NY, we heard, “My kindergarten is enjoying the den cam. The children were thrilled to see the video of the cub sightings over the weekend. We are graphing the temperature in Ely and comparing it to our own. Ely was warmer today! The students are practicing being biologists. We are measuring a replica of a bear foot in standard and non-standard measures. We've compared the bottom of our foot to a bear's, and practiced breathing slowly like a bear in hibernation. Last year's students often stop and ask how Lily and Hope are doing!!”

The updated map of where people are watching the Den Cam has 50 states and 54 countries, so there is talk of using it as a geography lesson in classrooms where students are watching the Den Cam.  It would also be nice to include cities. We’ll see if there is a way to collect that info too.

Meanwhile, everything sounds copacetic in the den.  The cubs are making their usual sounds that show they are nursing and communicating.  Lily is responding.  Hope sometimes sounds frustrated she can’t nurse, but she’s lucky she can nurse at all.  On the other hand, maybe it is her due to nurse to make up for not being able to nurse for 6 weeks last year.  It’s hard to know what is fair in the bear world.  We suspect payback for last year will come when she gets an extra year with Lily.  We heard today from Karen Hauserman who watched a mixed-age litter where wild bears gather to eat food provided by the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary back in 2005.  She said the yearling stayed with the mother and cub all summer instead of being forced on its own in early summer as would be usual and that the yearling and cub got along well.

We are anxious to get the Ted and Lucky Den Cam up and streaming to compare the inactivity in their den with the activity in Lily’s den.

The picture on the Den Cam could be better.  We think the camera is focusing on the bright vegetation at the top of the picture, throwing the bears out of focus unless they happen to move into the plane of focus.  It may be that one of the bears licked the lens, too.  We’d like to fix that by wiping the lens and aiming the camera lower, but we hesitate to go to the den and have Lily possibly come out as she has been doing when we visit.  We’re waiting to see if the picture gets better on its own.  If it doesn’t, we’ll wait for a warm day to make sure the cubs will be okay.  If Lily does come out, we think she would go back in at the first scream of one of the cubs.  We’d have to alert all of you so you could make a quick count of the cubs as we wouldn’t be able to see with Lily in the entrance.  We want the picture to be as good as possible to assure we can collect the best scientific data possible from this extraordinary opportunity while making sure we don’t do anything that could jeopardize the bears.

Thank you for all you do.

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