Hope the Sweetheart

How nice is Hope?  When a cub dug its needle-sharp claws into Hope’s skull to hang on in the captured video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRCJ3jD2MN8), Hope gently tilted her head and made no move to rake the cub off her head.  A few more patient movements and the cub tumbled free.  Where does this gentleness come from?

Although adult bear claws are not sharp, cub claws are.  Adult black bear claws are strong and curved for climbing trees but not sharp like a cat’s for holding prey.  Grizzly bear claws are broad and dull for digging and are nothing like the long dagger claws pictured in drawings in hunting magazines.  We know how sharp black bear cub claws are from the old days of holding them while recording data from their tranquilized mothers.  To hold on, they innocently dig their claws into clothing or skin, like the cub did to Hope’s head, and they stick like Velcro.  Rehabilitators know how sharp cubs’ claws are from bottle-feeding them while the cubs hang on.  Rehabbers who raise cubs can tell when a fellow rehabber is raising a cub from the scratches on the forearm.

More video from around 1 PM gave another look at what sexes the cubs are.  We’re getting embarrassed.  Now we’re leaning toward two females but are still unsure.  We never seem to see well enough.  Some of you have been saying two females, too, so if we are embarrassed in the end, some of you will be right with us.

A Lily fan asked about milk composition.  According to Lynn’s old professor at the University of Minnesota, black bear milk has 24.5% fat, 0.4% lactose (carbohydrate), 14.5% protein, 2.2% minerals, and 55.5% water.  The numbers don’t quite add up to 100%, but them’s the numbers.  (Jenness et al., 1972.  Some comparative aspects of milk from four species of bears.  Journal of Mammalogy 53(1):34-47).  According to Cornell University’s website, cow’s milk is 3.4% fat, 4.9% lactose, 3.3% protein, 0.7% minerals (referred to as ash), and 87.7 percent water.   The fat in black bear milk can vary with spring diet, though, varying from 18% to 27% in one study.   In the den, water can come from fat breakdown, but observations of lactating females eating snow suggest that it also can come from that.

Another Lily Fan asked, “Will the bears still remember “It’s me, bear” when they come out of the den after not seeing anyone for so long?”  They do, like not a day has passed.  The best example of a bear remembering a voice comes from a captive female Lynn befriended when the bear was a cub.  She grew up rolling on the ground wrestling with Lynn.  When she got too big to handle and got too rambunctious, Lynn would put his arm in the bear’s mouth, grab her forepaw, and roll her onto her back.  She would bite only gently during play.  Then he rubbed her belly and watched her eyes turn blissful as she calmed down and lay still.

Sometimes, Lynn wrapped his arms around her four legs and picked her up.  She looked around calmly at first and then would squirm to get down.  As a 3-year-old with cubs, it was still no problem for Lynn to pick her up like that.

Three years passed without Lynn visiting her.  When he did visit, a crowd gathered, and the bear seemed too distracted to sort Lynn out of the crowd.  Lynn didn’t think to speak.  Two days later, Lynn visited her with fewer people.  Again, he didn’t think to speak.  He sat next to her and offered her grapes.  At first she paid attention only to the grapes.  Then she looked at Lynn, put her nose to his mouth and closely and intently smelled his breath.   Within seconds, she jumped on him to wrestle like she hadn’t done with anyone for years.  They rolled around with her mouthing him gently until Lynn put his arm in her mouth, rubbed her belly, and calmed her down.

Five years later, Lynn visited again.  She was 14.  People set up cameras to record whether she would remember him or not.  Lynn entered the enclosure and was supposed to keep a low profile until he and the bear could get in front of the cameras.  A keeper pointed her out to Lynn.  She was 50 feet away among a half dozen other bears.  Without thinking, Lynn shouted to her like he had not shouted to her in 12 years.  She whirled to look at him.  No other bear reacted.  The keeper then walked past her with a bucket of treats to lead her toward the cameras.  She followed and sat down to eat.  Shortly, Lynn sat down beside her speaking in a gentle voice.  She was immediately comfortable.  He put his arm around her and his face close to hers.  She didn’t jump on him with good food to eat, but she let Lynn hold her head and turn it toward the camera.  It wasn’t like the emotional reunions circulating on the internet with lions and gorillas, but the happy picture of that moment of acceptance is one of Lynn’s favorites to this day.  The question now is how would she react to Lynn at the age of 22?

Was she so calm because she was a captive.  Actually, we generally trust wild bears more than captive bears, especially bears that live in small pens or grottos.  Wild bears can leave if they want, and they are sane.  But captive bears have nowhere to go and their reactions can be unpredictable.  The boredom of captivity pushes some over the brink into what veterinarians call captive psychoses.

One thing we are proud of about the North American Bear Center is that the big forested enclosure gives the captive bears room to keep their minds active.  They play, forage, or explore what Mother Nature has to offer in their forest in the different seasons.  They don’t pace or make repetitive motions.  We built the enclosure as a world model, and the bears are endorsing it with their behavior.

A couple who must be Lily fans found a bear hibernating in the hay on the second floor of their barn near Rushford, about a hundred miles southeast of Minneapolis near the Wisconsin border.  They asked a moderator of Lily’s Facebook page what she would suggest they do.  Everyone agreed that doing nothing was the best course.  They’re letting the bear sleep as shown in the picture.

Today, you registered 12,000 votes to elevate Ely from 59^th place to 51^st place in the Reader’s Digest race to win money for Ely and its school.  This demonstrates how much support the radio-collared bears bring to Ely.   To vote, go to http://wehearyouamerica.readersdigest.com/town.jsp?town=ELY&state=MN.

Thank you for all you are doing.

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