Waking Up Sweet - UPDATE February 19, 2016
Geneva on Sept. 29, 2015
Geneva on Sept. 29, 2015

In this 4 ? minute video that a Lily Fan captured this morning at 8:50 AM, Lucky and Holly lie on their sides relaxed, nose to nose, giving each other little nibbles in one of the sweetest demonstrations of bear affection I?ve seen. Neither bear got up. They remained facing each other moving mainly their heads. I couldn?t see all that they did. At first, I believe Holly was working on Lucky?s left front foot pad like we saw Jewel do for one of her yearlings in 2013. I believe they did some mutual tongue-licking between 1 ? minute to 2 minutes into the video, and again at 3 minutes. I?ve never seen bears lying on their sides nose to nose doing such gentle things like this. Watching bears undisturbed in dens gives insight into interactions people would not otherwise see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmDR6H-ZTbMOn this rainy, slippery day, traffic was backed up on a highway for nearly an hour as a big wrecker winched a big truck up a hill and back onto the highway. The truck had slid off and rolled over. I was the third vehicle in a long line that was stopped for the rescue vehicles. The officer near my van was from a different part of Minnesota but recognized me and was happy to meet me. It was gratifying to see his support and enthusiasm for my research. His mother is a staunch Lily Fan. He asked about my problems with the DNR. He said he had been following my research and the DNR saga for years. He said he is a lifelong hunter and was fully in support of protection for radio-collared bears. Meeting him gave me a boost of sorts.
I was also happy to hear that a national network is planning to interview me about my work and problems in a few months.
An E-newspaper out of New York interviewed me a couple days ago and was going to send me an email so I could link to the article in the update that evening, but I didn?t get an email. If any Lily Fan has come across the article about North America?s black bear population, it would be interesting to see how it turned out.
The picture of 8-month-old Geneva (Braveheart?s daughter) from the update of September 29, 2015 might be used on the Bear Center?s upper wall as an example of a chest blaze.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center