Update February 11, 2010 6:49 PM CST
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Yesterday at 7:13pm
Cub sightings are becoming more common. The cub is climbing around more now that she’s getting fur and temperatures are up to 20F. The ‘Lily & Cub Show’ will just get better and better.

The vocalizations are so basic to humans and bears, we all sense the cub’s emotions and intensity even if we don’t know the exact situation. It’s interesting to see how Lily deals with the cub’s moods.

Watching Lily reminds us of a mother and cubs that made us ask: How deeply do animals feel emotions? It was May 30, 1992. The state was moving a wild mother bear far away. The mother and one cub had been captured and put in a pen. Two cubs were still free. The mother wailed—sometimes softly, sometimes louder—as she sat disconsolate, holding and nursing the lone cub. The plaintive sounds continued for two days until the moment the two missing cubs were put in the pen with her. We never heard the sound again. When we play the taped sounds to school classes and ask what the mother was feeling, the kids all say she was sad and crying. It’s unmistakable. It brings tears to one’s eyes.

Donald Griffin, a professor friend who specialized in animal emotions at Harvard, said it’s difficult to prove what animals feel, but that we err more in denying their emotions than admitting to them.

We love your comments in Facebook. Your excitement is contagious and makes us proud to be part of the most knowledgeable group of cub observers ever. We have to find a way to have a den cam next winter. Technology is making more possible.

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

I started copying some of the notes on them. I figured it would come in handy when we're up in AlgonQuin Park. I've learned things I never knew about them. I have yet to see more then that one sighting of her foot

One of the many benefits of the HWF forum is that this data will be available to reference in the future, as needed. I think one of the deficits of the FB entries, and zaplive chat information is that it scrolls off the screen and either impossible or difficult fo find.

Eiguoc et al, I would encourage you to use some other sources for bear education, to add to your resource information, as you learn more about these magnificent creatures. There are countless good resources both online and in libraries......different viewpoints, different perspectives.what's seems true for black bears in one arena may differ from bears in another geographic location.

Quote by: eiguoc

I started copying some of the notes on them. I figured it would come in handy when we're up in AlgonQuin Park. I've learned things I never knew about them. I have yet to see more then that one sighting of her foot

Update February 12, 2010 6:18 PM CST

If anyone saw the February 1 issue of Scholastic Science World and saw a picture by Lynn Rogers on page 8 with the caption, “Female bears wake up briefly during hibernation to give birth,” please know that Lynn didn’t write the caption, and we know none of you wrote it, either. We know that just one cub is plenty to keep a mother bear awake much more than ‘briefly.’

On another subject, we promised a Lily fan to mention that black bears have killed people. She had a personal tragedy as a relative of 11-year-old Sam Ives, who was taken from a tent in Utah in June 2007. Black bears have killed people—63 across North America since 1900. Each one was a big tragedy. Most made national news.

We’ve tried to understand why these usually timid animals sometimes become killers. We’ve investigated predatory attacks and have come up with no good explanation. We’ve heard all the attempts to explain them, and all the attempts fail. We don’t understand them. We can only put them in perspective.

To do that, we went to the archives of the National Center for Health Statistics, which any of you can do. The numbers we got some years ago showed that for EACH killing by a black bear across North America, there were the following killings in the United States alone: 13 deaths from snakebite, 45 killings by dogs, 120 from bee or hornet stings, 249 from lightning, 60,000 homicides, and 120,000 traffic deaths. That doesn’t tell the whole story about relative danger because there are differences in exposure to the various causes.

A related set of statistics shows that across North America about 1 black bear out of a million kills someone, 1 grizzly bear out of 50,000 kills someone, and 1 human out of 18,000 kills someone. The 18,000 in the last statement includes people of all ages, including babies. Those statistics come from knowing the bear populations, the human population from the US and Canadian census bureaus, and homicides from US and Canadian Departments of Justice.

We feel pretty safe being in the woods with bears. When one of us is far from a road with a family of bears, we worry mainly about getting poked in the eye with a stick, slipping on mossy logs after a rain, and getting stung by hornets. Sue carries an EpiPen (Epinephrine) because she’s allergic to stings. Before GPS, we worried a little about getting lost on cloudy days. The bears, wolves, moose, and other animals are the least of our worries. We have never had a bear come after us and attack. The rare physical misunderstandings we’ve had with bears have resulted from our initiating contact.

Each killing by a bear is indeed a tragedy. We’re just thankful that they’re too rare for us to worry about.

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

jwnix thank you for all these updates.
Living near bear country it's interesting to read those statistics of bear attacks.
All bears, no matter if they are black or grizzly, are very unpredictable and it's always wise to remain on the side of caution when in the back-country.

Of course , they are WILD ANIMALS and not pets!!! While obviously, I think the cams on these animals are doing wonderful things for raising awareness, it is imperative to keep in mind that they are not warm fuzzy critters. Yes, majestic...Yes, hold one's breath in awe when one is privileged to get a glimpse of one in the wild.....and it is our job as humans to do whatever we can to protect them.

Often one can determine reasons a bear might have attacked and often it is unknown. It is tragic whenever it happens and usually then the bear is also killed. Many times it is due to humans destroying wild habitat, and then thinking that they can survive in fewer woods.....

an ongoing challenge....

Update February 13, 2010 7:10 PM CST

One of Lily’s Facebook Fans asked if Lily and other bears will be extra aggressive when coming out of dens in spring. The simple answer is “No.”

We often hear words like ‘aggressive’ or’ bold’ applied to bears and wonder what people mean and why we don’t see the same behavior. Often, the mere fact that a bear is seen—especially in daylight—is interpreted as a bear being aggressive or bold. People are especially sensitive to seeing a bear where bears haven’t been seen for many years. The shock of seeing a bear brings an emotional response colored by hunting magazine covers, snarling taxidermy, and warnings written by government attorneys worried about liability problems—all are efforts to paint bears as aggressive, angry, and prone to attack. None of which is true.

The attitude people assign to a bear is usually a reflection of the person’s attitude about bears.

For example:

A mountain bike rider came upon a mother with 2 cubs on a trail. The cubs scrambled up a nearby tree while the mother sat in the trail and looked at the rider. She didn’t blow, chomp, pounce, or slap. She did nothing. She just looked. However, the story the rider told was of an aggressive problem bear that ‘stared him down.’ He pushed his bike through the woods to get around her, and—instead of chalking the encounter up to ‘life in bear country’— he rode home angered at the impudence of a bear that ‘didn’t run.’

To us, sitting calmly near the tree her cubs were in didn’t sound aggressive at all.

We hear the same from wildlife officials. If a bear comes into a yard to get birdseed—especially if it breaks the birdfeeder in the process—it’s a problem bear. If it shows nervousness by blowing or pouncing, it’s deemed aggressive. To us, that’s normal bear behavior, especially if food is scarce in the woods. It’s not a sign of aggression.

We believe there should be a more realistic vocabulary about bears and a better understanding of what is normal bear behavior.

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As we put the finishing touches on this update, Lily’s cub is softly cooing and waving one foot about. Simple pleasures.

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

Just found this interesting article on BEAR MILK which answered some of my questions..... http://www.wc.adfg.state.ak.us/index.cf ... les_id=296