Rfalconcam Forum

http://www.wildearth.tv/static/bearden (http://www.wildearth.tv/static/bearden)

Watch her in her Den and soon to become a mama. Cams will catch the birth. Enjoy

 Lily the Black Bear  Lily gave birth to one cub at 11:38am CST. So far we have been unable to confirm a second cub. We just haven't heard 2 cub voices.   :clap:

http://www.wildearth.tv/static/wildearth/channels/we_bear_den.html (http://www.wildearth.tv/static/wildearth/channels/we_bear_den.html)

Here is a video that was posted of it, sounds like a human baby.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBNtANbW5vE

I've been checking in on the bears sporadically since Lily & Hope left the den a while ago.  Imagine my surprise when I checked in tonight to find that Lily and Hope have been separated since Friday!  Lily wandered off leaving Hope sleeping in a tree (which they often do) and when she got back Sunday (also normal) Hope was gone and torrential rain had washed away her scent.  A search was set up and Hope was spotted yesterday & then she ran off.  She was finally treed tonight and lured down with condensed milk.  Apparently they're now taking her to Lily (who has a GPS collar) in a pet carrier and they'll see what happens from there.  Stay tuned!

Duluth News story (http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/169751/)

There's another news story that's refusing to load and I'm trying to follow the news on her facebook  (http://www.facebook.com/lily.the.black.bear?v=wall)page-which is about impossible...in typical facebook fashion, it took me 20 pages of older posts to reach 5 minutes ago...which were all "thank God she's alive!"  Still haven't found the post with the actual news...

Looks like after one read the newspaper wants you to sign up...no thanks!

Someone posted the text...

 EAGLES NEST TOWNSHIP (12 MILES WEST OF ELY) — Sue Mansfield started crying as soon as she saw the cub’s face.
Even with the cub 30 feet up a cedar tree, Ely bear researcher Mansfield knew it was Hope because of its light face.
After being missing since Friday evening, with researchers holding out little hope the cub was still alive, friends of Ely bear researcher Lynn Rogers called about 6 p.m. today to say they had a lone bear cub treed. The cub came down and was captured less than two hours later.
Mansfield and Rogers had rushed to the site, which was nearly two miles from where the cub was last seen but was in an area that the cub and its mother Lily had frequented.
“This is where it spent much of its time, but it’s amazing it made it this far away in less than a day,” Rogers said.
Mansfield said the cub covered the two miles around the lake and likely had to swim a stream on its own to find the area where it had spent time with its mother.
Now that the cub is back in safe hands, Rogers said a major question remains on whether Lily will accept it back. Because they’ve been apart for five days, Lily’s hormones may have turned to the new mating season and away from taking care of her cub.
Because Lily is fitted with a GPS collar that gives her location every 10 minutes, Rogers and Mansfield hope to find her yet tonight and reintroduce Hope to Lily to see the sow's reaction. They halted an initial attempt to reintroduce them tonight when Lily ran away from the approaching vehicles.
If Lily eventually accepts Hope, the story will end with their reunion. If not, Rogers will have to decide what to do with the cub with input from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The cub could be raised by a wildlife rehabilitator and returned to the wild or could wind up as a captive bear at the North American Bear Center in Ely.
Hope hadn’t been seen since Friday, when she and Lily climbed a red pine to rest after a two-mile walk, Rogers said. Later Friday evening, Lily wandered more than two miles away, possibly chasing or being chased by a rival adult bear. By the time she returned Sunday, 50 hours later, Hope was gone from the tree and rain had erased any scent.
“We don’t know what happened — Lily spent the spring in very small areas, maybe 50 to 100 yards in diameter. It was hard to believe she was getting enough food — she finally left, we think to find better food, and took Hope two miles away,” Rogers said. “The last time Sue saw Lily and Hope together, about 6 p.m. Friday, they were both up a tree sleeping after the long walk.”
It took Lily until Sunday to get back to the red pine where she left Hope. But Hope was not in the area.
At nearly 4 months old, Hope is just beginning to eat food from the field and would not have been expected to survive for long on its own, Rogers said.
At this time of year, the cub’s best bet of nutrition in the wild probably would be ant pupae, Rogers said. But he noted that a young cub could not be expected to roll over logs or expose sheltered ant nests.
Lily is fitted with a collar that holds a GPS tracking unit so researchers can track and find her at any time. The cub, however, is too small to carry a collar.
Rogers, staff from the North American Bear Center and volunteers searched, as did Lily. But there had been no sign of Hope in the area. Rogers had all but resigned himself that the cub had perished.
That was until Tuesday afternoon.
Rogers said he left a pan of food in the area where the lone cub was sighted Tuesday and trained a trailcam on the meal-in-the-waiting.
As of 9 p.m. Tuesday, Rogers had not had any luck catching up to the missing cub, but he was expecting reinforcements. He said the St. Louis County Rescue Squad was on the way with a heat-sensing device that he hoped might reveal the young bear’s likely sleeping place in the tree canopy of the area.
Hope was born on Jan. 22 and left the den with Lily in late March after being watched for weeks by millions of people on the live Webcam placed in their meager den. It’s believed to be a first for a wild black bear birth in a den. Mansfield has continued to video the sow and cub since then, and she and Rogers often meet up with and spend time with the bears in the woods.
The videos and reports can be seen at www.bear.org.
Cathy Williamson of Brook, Ind., who last winter won a contest sponsored by Cub Foods to name Lily’s bear cub, echoed hundreds of messages left on Lily’s Facebook page this week.
“No matter what the outcome, little Hope will always be my shining star as well as many others’ shining star,” Williamson told the News Tribune. “She has done things for people better than any doctor could ever have done.”

Noticed you guys were following this too - great news Lily and Hope have been successfully reunited!

Video of the reunion - have tissue handy :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqqdkXpTfVc

Update May 26, 2010Share. Today at 11:28pm
Reunited at last!

It was the most satisfying moment of my 44 years of bear study. When Sue and I got the cub into the little carrier kennel and I saw Sue crying, I could hardly keep from breaking down myself. And then seeing Lily and Hope’s reunion was the most beautiful expression of animal emotion I have ever seen. Hope was bawling very loudly, and Lily was doing her pleasant grunts as Hope latched onto a nipple and Lily half dragged her nearer to the white pine where they had nursed together so many times in April.

Sue is readying video she took of the reunion. It’s late, and we were up half the night last night, so we’ll fill in details tomorrow.

Thank you all so much for pulling together with us as we all went through this emotional roller coaster. The roller coaster effect continued right up to the unexpectedly wonderful end. More on that tomorrow.

Thank you for the tremendous outpouring of support today. We can’t wait to meet many of you all at the Lilypad Picnic in a couple months.

Wow, what a sweet, tender moment between Lily and Hope. This is definitely a  :crying: moment. Thanks Carly.

 goodnews: :the_wave:

 :clap: :clap: :clap:

Wonderful news this week about Lily and Hope!  After 6 weeks separation following the first reunion, during which Hope was given suplemental food and formula by the researchers but also foraged quite successfully, Lily (who had been off with male bears) wandered back into Hope's area and they reunited, July 11.  This time, Hope is big enough to follow Lily like glue, so we are all optimistic that they will stay together.  Also, the North American Bear Center won $100,000 in the Chase Bank contest for non-profoits, and 195 "runner-ups" won $20,000 each.  This is an annual (or semi-annual) event specifically designed for small local non-profits which use the Internet, so it seems to me that Rfalconcam would have a good chance if it is possible to enter the next time they have it. Read all about it on Lily the Black Bear's Facebook page! :clap: 

With the addition of streaming video and improvements to reliability, hopefully Rfalconcam will be in a better position to compete for Internet nature-watching eyeballs next time.

http://www.bear.org/livecams/lily-hope-cam.html (http://www.bear.org/livecams/lily-hope-cam.html) Lily and Hope sleeping

Ooooh! I just saw a BBC programme about Lily and Hope! I am not sure of the title, but I think it could be "The Bear Family and Me". It is amazing! Maybe you will get it on PBS, or perhaps National Geographic... but do watch for it, as it is something else. I will try to find a link later, but no doubt Donna will beat me to it! Go, Girl!

Bobbie

Well, duuuh on me - I did not realise there was such a string of posts already about Lily and Hope. Still... that TV series is splendid and well worth a look... tho perhaps you have all seen it by now. I should get out more... or stay in less??

 :paperbag:

Bobbie

Not sure if we will get it in the US Bobbie: Here's what I found.

Sue Gottscho: If you live in the UK, please watch The Bear Family and Me on January 3, 4 and 5. And please tell all your friends and family over the pond to watch it to! The more viewers, the better chance of getting it broadcast in the US! I’d also like to start a campaign to email Animal Planet/Discovery TV and ask them to broadca...st the shows as soon as possible in the US. The more of us they hear from, the more they will realize the audience they have just waiting to watch. Here’s the link to email: http://corporate.discovery.com/contact/viewer-relations/

Animal Planet/Discovery doesn't make it easy but here's the sequence I used on their form:

Question Regarding: Network/Program Related
Program/Show: Other
Program Time: Primetime
Information Needed: General Question or Comment

And here is the comment I left: I would like to ask you to air the BBC 3 part series "The Bear Family And Me" which airs in the UK beginning Jan. 3, 2011. The over 119,000 Facebook fans of Lily the Black Bear would love to see this series in the US on Animal Planet!

I knew you would not let me down, Donna! Yes, do make that contact, as this is one of the most amazing natural history series I have seen in ages. I missed it earlier in the month, but discovered it was being repeated - I was hooked! Most of the bears' saga is revealed in the Forum posts, but that will not take from the drama - and dramatic it is!

Tweet from the Bear Center...

At 5:08 PM CST the muscles on Lily's head began to flex as she clenched her teeth. Last year, teeth-clenching signaled the start of labor. 20 minutes ago · reply

http://www.bear.org/livecams/lily-hope-cam.html (http://www.bear.org/livecams/lily-hope-cam.html)

I have a lot of problems with the view, figuring out which way she's facing, etc.  All I see is a black form moving as she breathes.  Does anyone else have this problem, and does anyone have any hints as to how to view her?  Thanks. 

Whenever I've looked at the cam, that's all I see too.

It can be hard figuring it out-they put the cam closer this year, but it's wireless & battery operated, so it's grainier than last year.  I haven't been able to get the cam running at work today, so I'm not sure right now.  Last night Lily was lying on her left side with her back to the camera-head left, feet right-with Hope in the back facing Lily-head left, feet right. I usually keep looking for a hint of ear to figure out where the head is.  Sometimes you just have to wait for them to look at the camera.  And someone usually posts directions on the facebook page.

Ei

A cub has been born! 3 hours ago ·

Lily gave birth to one cub at 13:51 CST. Will there be another?

Second cub born at 15:03 CST.  Oh my!  Mom, Hope and 2 cubs in 1 den!!  :o

Congrats Lily!

 :clap:

Oh my!!!   :clap:

 :yahoo:

A nice video caught today of Lily, Hope & the 2 new cubs.

Lilly Hope Nubie2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tBFgfCiivU#)
Who is where when the video opens:  Hope is to the left, Lily to the right.  Lily is half sitting/half lying facing the camera curled over the cubs-you're mostly seeing the top of her head at the beginning.  The best view of the cubs is around 13:18 CST

Generally speaking, bears only give birth every 2 years so this "mixed age litter" is unusual.  The researchers have been wondering how Hope would react-it seems her mothering instincts are coming out.  You can see her licking one of the cubs at around 13:20 CST.

Ei

Thanks Ei. Hope is very curious. Was wondering how they deal with new siblings. They are so cute.

New video of Lily and all the cubs posted Feb. 2nd.

February 02, 2011 - Lily's Den - Views of the cubs! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh2QTx32w6A#)

That is so precious Kris. Hope is really helping out. So cute. Thanks

I love how cute Hope is with the cubs!  Lily sure has her paws full!!

So precious, how do those little cubs not get smooshed under the bigger bears? Nature is incredible!  :2thumbsup:

Sure is, MAK!  I've wondered the same thing.

cub hanging on Hopes face Feb 5 2011 at 11 55am004.avi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-l2AV61aMo#)

Yikes, poor Hope, she was angry! That was so cute. Thanks!

Always so thrilled to get these reports.

OMG, Hope really wants to take care of them. Lily say's "Back off". Hope gets annoyed. This is a great video. Thank you Kris!

I'm really glad that Hope is being good with them as reports from this summer was that she was very mean to her mother.  This is quite extraordinary to have a mixed group like this-very rare they say.  I can't believe how big the cubs are getting!! Glad you enjoyed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc5UioHbYts# (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc5UioHbYts#) Hope loves her siblings....maybe a bit too much! So cute.

The cubs have been named:

                                                               
FAITH & JASON  :clap:
 

The winner that has had the honor of naming the cubs has asked to remain anonymous and we will honor her request. She sent the following description, the insightful thoughts given to her by her seven year old grandson, for her choices. "Faith is the faith that the learning and love of the bears will go on and on and since you can't name a boy Love, Jason is the next best thing because he shows love in all he does." We extend our warmest thanks and congratulations to our winner. Thank you to all who submitted names and made it a true and wonderful experience for Lily's online family!

I sent in Meadow & Briar.

 

Love the names!  I submitted Faith and Freddy in the naming contest.

Yahoo, your good!  :thumbsup:

Not good, just lucky.  I figured with Hope-either Faith or Charity would be good choices to go with.  I guess Jason is the guy who does a lot for the bears and cam so they honored him.

Yup, Jason is the guy who went out in dangerously low temps to get the cam running again just before the cubs were born.

 :clap: Awesome! :2thumbsup:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rfalconcam/138082889560335#!/notes/lily-the-black-bear/update-april-12-2011-1043-pm-cst/10150267570594478 (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rfalconcam/138082889560335#!/notes/lily-the-black-bear/update-april-12-2011-1043-pm-cst/10150267570594478)

Jason, the bear cub dies! How very very very sad.  :crying:

Sad end.  :'(

He always was weaker than Faith-very meek, not adventurous like his sister.  When Lily made the decision to leave the den and started traveling with her cubs, Jason found it hard to keep up.  While his sisters were climbing trees, he would sleep at their bases.  It will be interesting to see what the autopsy shows.  Possibly malnutrition with Lily nursing 3 cubs at the same time?  :crying:

 :( I can't bear it!  :crying:

An updated video of Lily, Faith and Hope:

http://youtu.be/wS3rTK2Ut4I (http://youtu.be/wS3rTK2Ut4I)

Sweet baby :'(

 :wave:  Very cute Kris thanks!   ;D

Jason's (Lily's male cub who died in April) necropsy report is in and the findings are surprising:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/notes/lily-the-black-bear/update-may-15-2011-820-pm-cdt/10150308100829478 (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/notes/lily-the-black-bear/update-may-15-2011-820-pm-cdt/10150308100829478)

This is so sad. Wow, what a name they gave that infection! RIP little Jason.

Poor baby! Brain infections are notoriously difficult even with the best, most rapid care-most likely nothing could have been done anyway.

Newest video of Hope and Faith playing- cute but bears can play rough!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FWv_jqsA1k#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FWv_jqsA1k#ws)

Thanks for posting, Kris - so nice to see them again.

Glad you enjoyed it, Bobbie!   

Love how they play together. Cute, thanks Kris!

Just before bear hunting season opened, several research bears had radio-collars and ribbons put on them to protect them from being killed.  Hope wouldn't keep hers on and now she's been missing for a week and there are fears she has been killed by a hunter.  :crying:

Update September 23, 2011 – 8:27 PM CDT.

by Lily the Black Bear on Friday, September 23, 2011 at 11:42pm
.
Losing Hope

 We are still waiting for information from the Department of Natural Resources about any young females that might have been registered from this area.  Meanwhile, we heard back from a hunter who began baiting in this area shortly before Hope disappeared.  We know this hunter would not shoot a radio-collared bear.  He wrote that he passed up Jo and her cub and Ursula and her two cubs—bears whose GPS locations showed them at his bait—but he didn’t mention Lily or say whether or not he had killed Hope.

 We had checked his bait site earlier in the season and it wasn’t being used.  On the 15th, we began to see Jo, Ursula, Lily and their families frequenting the area.  When we drove by the site on September 16, we found fresh signs of baiting—a well-used trail leading to the bait site.  We couldn’t walk in to check more closely because that could be construed as hunter harassment.  We hoped for the best.  Hope shortly went missing.

 Lily's family bedsite near large white pine -- log in foreground torn open as they searched for grubsYesterday, we downloaded Lily’s GPS locations for that time period and retraced Lily’s steps to look for clues.  We found a well-used bedsite only 140 yards from the hunter’s bait site.

 We know from walking with bears at this time of year that it’s not unusual for cubs to leave their sleeping mothers and forage up to half a mile away.  We suspect that may be what happened.  Hope—possibly with Faith—may have ventured into the bait site.  The hunter would not have known this big yearling was still with her mother—still nursing along with her younger sister.  He would not have known it was Hope.

 We don’t want to jump to conclusions, which is why we waited to hear from the hunter and are still waiting to hear from the DNR, which won’t happen now until Monday at the earliest.

 So when we got a call of a young bear treed near Ely, we took a look.  It wasn’t Hope.  It was a pair of cubs we had received a call about yesterday, too.  The neighborhood had secretly enjoyed seeing the mother with cubs.  The residents became worried when a hunter began baiting nearby.  Shortly, the cubs were repeatedly seen alone.  Today, they were up trees where the landowners had not seen them before, and they called hoping they had found missing Hope.

 We feel like we did when June and her cubs went missing back in 2005.  We feared she had been shot.  That was the first experience like that for Sue, who had spent hundreds of hours with June, and she felt the huge loss until June’s signal was picked from an airplane by DNR researchers over 15 miles outside her usual area.  We feel like Lynn did when he homed in by airplane on the radio signal of a deer he had walked with for over 2 years as it grew up and had a fawn.  He had raised the deer on a bottle until she would come to his call.  Then he released her into the wild and watched her integrate with wild deer, even becoming the leader of wild deer she grouped with in a wintering area.  When he spotted the deer from the airplane, she was lying dead, having escaped from the hunter with an arrow through her.  He couldn’t talk about it, not even to his wife Donna, for nearly a week until he had his own emotions sufficiently in check to tell about it.

 Hope was/is special.  If she really is gone, we can say that she had so much more to teach.  We wonder how Faith feels with her buddy gone.  We wonder how Lily feels.  After her hormone problems were resolved, she became a devoted mother again, playing, nursing, and looking out for Hope as well as Faith.  She gave up food for herself to let Hope and Faith have it.  Now she has no choice but to move on without Hope, and we guess that is all we can do, too.  We want to believe she is okay somewhere and maintain a glimmer of hope.   But the email from the hunter made that hope very slim.  It’s true she wasn’t collared, but we had hoped that Hope’s story would play out.  We had more to learn from her.

 We don’t know what to say.  We suspect that some of you would know exactly what to say and could say it very eloquently, but we would rather you didn’t say it on Lily’s page or on any page associated with the research or the Bear Center.  We thank you all for your cooperation.

 Glenn and Nancy spent the rest of yesterday and most of today monitoring Cookie to make sure she stayed away from the beehive.  She did.  Instead, she headed toward the area where she denned last winter.  She is undoubtedly pregnant, so she should den any day now.  The landowner took precautions beyond the electric fence he and we put up around his hives.  He found a bigger electric fence and put that up, too.  He very much cares about his bees.  In fact, he told us that he stayed up all night after finding Cookie at the hives that first evening.  He couldn’t help falling asleep about 5 AM.  When he awoke about 6:30 AM, he found that Cookie had been back and damaged a hive.  He said he cried like a baby.  We appreciate his working with us instead of just shooting her when he first saw her the evening before.

 Braveheart managed to remove her radio-collar again (!), and we were lucky to get an opportunity to replace it.  However, the new collar doesn’t have a GPS unit yet.  When we visited her to give her a GPS unit, she wasn’t in a mood to accept it.  We’ll try again.  Braveheart is the typically calm bear that was featured in the Minneapolis Star Tribune a couple years ago.  But as bears slow down for hibernation, there are times when we hesitate to push them too hard.  Any person or bear has limits.

 
On the bright side, all indications are that the other bears are fine.  We are noticing movements that let us know some are headed for dens.  We’ll all rest easier when they all ‘go to ground’ –another term for ‘denning.’[/color][/i]

This is just so terribly sad. I hope for "Hopes" sake, it wasn't her. Yes,  :crying:

 :pray:

this is such sad news!  I hate hearing that a special one like Hope could be lost!   :crying:  :banghead:

Part of today's update:   :(

Update September 26, 2011 – 8:31 PM CDT
.by Lily the Black Bear on Monday, September 26, 2011 at 10:29pm.

Hope, Hunting, and the Media

As we come to grips with the loss of Hope, we are mainly thankful for her life.  She brought people together to learn about black bears.  She was part of the biggest worldwide bear education project we know.  She has changed the attitudes of thousands, perhaps millions, through the internet and documentaries.  Her death is a tragedy.  There is so much more we all could have learned.  Her death is a blow to science, education, the region, and us, including all of you.  But it is not the end.  It is a hurdle.  We’ll all continue to do the best we can with what is left.   

 We are still waiting for the DNR and the hunter to tell us what happened.  We left a message on the hunter’s phone and a message with the DNR.  From the DNR we want to know about any bear registered from that bait.  We promised them that we would not give out the hunter’s name.  Although the DNR has not responded to us yet, we have received information that they intend to provide us with the registration information we are seeking but will not name the hunter.  It sounds like a bear was registered as we thought.

 We wish none of this would have happened—for Hope, for the study, for the grief it has caused, and for our relationship with this hunter.  We thank the DNR for their intention to provide the registration information. 

I can hardly read this. Shoot Hope? For what?

Hunting season, since she kept taking the the collar off she was fair game, so to speak. Very sad if it was her. It's been a week and no "Hope". That's why I do not like "Bear" hunting! :(

A trophy on his wall, meat on his table?   They do eat bear there.

In a perfect world...

http://www.youtube.com/tippexperience (http://www.youtube.com/tippexperience)

According to the BBC website:

"Recreational hunting is permitted by licence in the state but hunters are asked not to shoot collared bears."

This is recreation?!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15075332 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15075332)

This is one of those areas where head & heart conflicting make my head & heart hurt. 

Further on in the Bear Center article (http://www.bearstudy.org/website/research/daily-updates/1404-hope-hunting-and-the-media-.html) today they point out that Lynn Rogers actually helped write the hunting regulations.  Before there was controlled "recreational" hunting it was free-for-all 24/7/365 bears are fair game.  Dr. Rogers often points out that a clean shot by a hunter at a bait site is more humane than a wounding shot where the bear then wanders off to die in pain.  There has been a lot of progress in getting hunters to avoid shooting collared bears.  Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, Hope would not allow herself to be collared.   

Would I personally ever hunt?  No.  Can I understand someone who does to put food on the table?  Absolutely.  I live in an area popular with deer hunters.  As much as I love watching the herd in my back yard, there is a serious problem with overpopulation.  Overpopulation leads to disease.  I have no tolerance for "hunters" who take their "trophy" and leave the rest.  But I have shared venison with hunters who hunt properly and as humanely as possible.  I can respect them while choosing to not do as they do.

Yes, in a perfect world we wouldn't need to even think about this.  I was fond of Hope too and I wish it had turned out differently, but without a collar she looked like any other bear.  Very, very sad.

 :crying:

 :goodone:

So they hunt juveniles too? I would think a hunter would know the difference between a young and an adult. Are all bears fair game, no matter the age and size? Very disturbing!

Unfortunately, older than a year is legal.  Could the regulations be improved?  Definitely.  And I hope they are. 

 :( Sadly unfortunate!  :no:

Mini Update September 27, 2011 - 2:00 PM CD.

by Lily the Black Bear on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 3:12pm
.
Facts come in

 We never received confirmation from the MN DNR, but early this morning we heard directly from the hunter who killed Hope.  We appreciate him contacting us.  This is what we know.

Hope was killed on the evening of Friday the 16th.  She came into his bait site alone and the hunter had no clue it was Hope.  The hunter is known to us and has cooperated with us in the past.  He would never shoot a collared bear and would not have deliberately shot Hope.  He also is not a member of the ‘Bounty’ page and has never posted there.

 There has been some confusion due to the fact we posted on Sept 17th that the family was fine.  We, in fact, did not see Hope or Faith on the 17th.  Sue found Lily alone and changed her GPS.  Lily walked away grunting and tongue-clicking.  We assumed Hope and Faith were together nearby (which is often the case) and Lily was going to them.  We had no reason to believe otherwise.  Sorry for any confusion this caused.

 Please respect our desire to keep the hunter’s name confidential.  Attacks on him or hunters in general will only serve to undermine our potential for future research and education.  We will provide another update later today with additional information.

 Please be kind and supportive to each other as we all work through this.

 —Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
 
No matter what he said, he was cornered and had to confess and I'll always believe he knew who he killed.  I'm heartbroken.  :(

 :crying:

 :no:   Say it ain't so!  :crying:  :heart:

I am so sad.  Poor little one :(

Update September 27, 2011 – 4:24 PM CDT
by Lily the Black Bear on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 9:12pm
Facts and Feelings
 
The wait is over.  The hoped for confirmation from the DNR never came, but the hunter who shot Hope came forward to provide us with some facts via email.  The hunter said he shot a yearling female at his bait the evening of Friday September 16.  She was alone and he had no clue it was Hope.  We know the hunter and he has been cooperative and helpful in the past.  He would never shoot a collared bear—and he would not have deliberately shot Hope.   
 
Here is the chain of events.  Hope was last seen with Lily and Faith at 7:05 PM on September 14 at one of the dozen feeding stations in the community.  Residents of this community have been feeding bears since 1961.  As a result, there are no bad food years here and bear problems run 80% below the state average.  In this year of scarce wild food, the feeding stations were especially important in keeping bears out of trouble.
 
The hunters’ bait was 1200 to 1600 yards from the 3 feeding stations Lily and her family have visited this fall between excursions to forage for scarce wild foods.  About 4 PM on September 15, Lily and family found the hunter’s bait.  The next afternoon, September 16, the family returned to the area and bedded 165 yards away.  In the evening, Hope was the one that got up and went to the bait first.  We believe the hunter when he said Hope came to his bait alone. 
 
Most bears taken in the hunt are 1-2 years old so the fact he shot a yearling is not unusual.  He is not a trophy hunter, but shoots smaller bears for the quality of their meat.  And he eats what he kills.  He also is not a member of the ‘Lily: A bear with a bounty’ page and has never posted there.
 
Unfortunately, our update of September 17 said we had visited Lily and family.  In fact, we did not see Hope or Faith on the 17th.  Sue found Lily alone and changed her GPS unit.  When Lily walked away grunting and tongue-clicking—the contact vocalizations mothers make to their cubs—we assumed Hope and Faith were nearby.  We had no reason to believe otherwise.  We are sorry for any confusion this caused.  We are human and make mistakes. 
 
In retrospect, there may have been clues we missed.  Lily was not her usual self when Sue met up with her on the 17th.  She allowed Sue to change her GPS unit but didn’t stay around to finish the nuts.  Sue chocked Lily’s behavior up to the lethargy we see in bears at this time of year.  They’re slowing down in preparation for denning.  Mothers slow down long before their cubs and their cubs often roam without them.  That was Hope’s undoing.  It is possible Lily’s apparent lethargy may have been her response to the sudden loss of Hope.
 
Another clue was Faith’s peculiar reaction when we checked on Lily’s family September 21—the day after the picture of Lily and Faith walking on the road.  As we approached, Faith moved away rather than towards us like she usually does.  She seemed less confident without big sister Hope around.
 
Where do we go from here?  It’s an emotional time for all of us.  At first it’s tears.  Then it’s anger and a search for why.  Then a sense of loss sets in.  We appreciate your support through all of this.  It’s a time to come together, and we’re glad to have many old Lily fans gathering together with us.
 
Please respect our desire to keep the hunter’s name confidential.  Attacks on him or hunters in general will only serve to undermine our potential for future research and education. 
 
Thank you for all you do.
 
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center

Poor Hope! :crying:

Hard to read that update, Kris. They call this "hunting"!? Bait a site near the study zone. Sit there. Wait for bear to amble by. Kill it. Very sporting.

Some one should get the word out that Minnesota needs Supermarkets with meat departments
like we have in the rest of our great country.  It is nice the hunter eats what he kills, but the
question I ask, is it necessary for him to kill to eat????

A very good question nyc! They actually don't hunt, they just bait, sit and wait. I just feel so bad for Hope. Lily must miss her awful and little Faith also. Imagine the den if Hope made it through, Lily, Hope, Faith and possibly 2 more over the Winter! Seems they all loved each other very much. :(

Dr. Lynn Rogers is a researcher who has been studying Black Bears for 40+ yrs :

The DNR asked Lynn to write the initial bear hunting regulations.  Lynn made the hunt as humane as possible.  Bear hunting was reduced from 52 weeks to 6.  There would be no spring season that orphans cubs that are totally dependent on their mothers.  Rifles would not include .22’s that are more likely to wound bears than kill them.  Lynn rightly viewed wounding loss as the biggest problem in bear hunting.  To reduce that problem, he introduced the controversial practice of baiting.   With baiting, a bear would offer a humane, killing shot.  Granted, baiting can hardly be considered sporting, but a well placed shot means a quick kill with minimal suffering.

 The number of bears killed can be controlled by season length and number of hunting licenses.  The way the bears are killed should be the most humane possible.  Wounding loss increases when “sport” is introduced in bear hunting, like stalking bears and taking fleeting shots at bears running away or using inadequate weapons.  Wounding loss increases the number of bears killed.  When a hunter wounds a bear, the hunter continues hunting until he shoots a bear dead and tags it.  Meanwhile, how many of the wounded bears die in addition to the recorded kill?  With baiting, a bear approaches a bait in an open area and the camouflaged hunter in his tree stand can quietly wait for a killing shot.  Killing shots reduce the number of bears killed.  

 

http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/blogs/130748523.html (http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/blogs/130748523.html) A Hunter Admits to Killing Hope the Black Bear

WOW!!!

Thank you Kris again for this!

 :suspicious: :crying: