Duluth, MN (Northland's NewsCenter) A concerted effort is underway to offer protection for radio collared black bears in Minnesota. Last week the DNR declined legal protection. Now an online petition with more than 12 thousand supporters is in favor of sparing radio collared research bears during hunting season.
In this week's Nature Matters David Hoole has an update on how some people are working to get bears into the State Legislature.
"Now I'll put some ribbons on this collar because we are still in hunting season."
Dr. Lynn Rogers was working to protect his research bears last fall by putting heavy bright colored ribbons on their radio collars. Now he is imploring supporters of his research to act by raising their voice by writing letters, e-mails and signing a petition to get support in the state legislature to offer legal protection for his research subjects.
With the extensive work that has been put into building trust between human researchers and their wild subjects, Rogers is very concerned about losing any of his subjects.
This past year across the state eleven radio collared bears were shot ... The DNR lost 9 and we lost 2."
Interest in black bears greatly increased across the nation and around the world after Rogers installed a live camera in a bear den two years ago. This winter another camera was installed, and rapt audiences watched mother black bear, Lily and her yearling cub Hope as Lily gave birth to a pair of new cubs.
Rogers has now appealed to his network of den cam watchers to lobby lawmakers to encourage DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr to change his ruling and protect research bears.
Landwehr responded saying:
"While Mr. Rogers' research is popular and interesting, it is not essential to managing bear populations in Minnesota. As a matter of policy, our job at the DNR is to manage entire populations of wild animals, and singling out individual bears for protection is not a policy I support."
Landwehr and Rogers now agree that the issue should be decided by the State Legislature. Meanwhile Rogers continues to encourage lobbying efforts through the bear dot org website.
From the northlands newscenter, I'm David Hoole for nature Matters.
We want to hear from you. This issue is our website question of the day. Should radio collared research bears be protected by the state. Log onto northlands newscenter dot com and cast your vote.
Bear researchers near Ely currently have nine collared bears.
The dencam looking in on Lily, Hope and the two cubs is still up.
You can see that on the North American Bear Center website.
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