August 4, 2008

It's a Bear Fair
by Cori Stanek

Saturday was the big day after 3 months of brainstorming, planning, logisticizing, and a fair bit of panicking… Cori, Jessie, and Adam have been working hard with SEC and Seeley Bear Aware to plan, promote, and run the first ever Seeley-Swan Bear Fair! And it was a success!

The occasion was intended to both educate residents about living with bears as well as promoted preventative measures that can be taken at home to reduce the conflicts between bears and valley residents. There were bear spray demos, bear dog demos, field research presentations, lots of food, and a little fun too…

NwC took on the tikes for the day and ran the kids activity table—where crayons, sidewalk-chalk, and tattoos abounded.

In fact, one could reasonably argue that in the onslaught of free bear paraphernalia, the bear tats were the choice item of the afternoon… how could they not be really? Kudos to Kathy for thinking that one up!

Aside from the crayola world of bears and kids, the event was well received by all those in attendance—nearly 250!

Success is sweet, and so is the completion of so much work. What out for next summer, hopefully the Bear Fair will become a yearly event!

Wind River Institute’s Karelian Bear dogs.	Sweet tat!
Chalking out the ABCs

Garden Update

A summer frost hit the garden earlier this week (oh yes, a summer frost) and Adam and Cori were caught completely off-guard. The challenges of homestead food-production just keep on coming, frost in August!?

Fortunately, despite lack of preparedness, our garden survived—a little burnt around the edges, but alive and kickin’.

More kale was packed into the freezer for fall semester this week, along with homemade rhubarb sauce to keep those L&Lers happy.

The Passed Week at Connections     

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were the first days of NwC’s  stint on this summer’s bear DNA work with Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks. This season brought the NwC crew into the Flathead National Forest’s Tally Lake Ranger District to set up 26 bear-hair snaring sites across the north end of the district.

The lure infused sets will be left for the next two weeks before team NwC hits the brush and blow-down once again to collect hair samples and send their contributions on to the labs.

Adam and Tom setting up the first of many bear-hair-snare wires—a ring of fine barbed wire set at knee height, catching hair samples as the bears move through the fencing in pursuit of the lure doused wood seen in the center of the exclosure.	Mmm mmm bear lure, a stunning and stomach turning mix of cow’s blood, fish guts, and other unmentionables—leave it to fester for a while in a Nalgene, then a little while longer in the sunny bed of a truck, and you’ve got one potent, nose-burning bear attractant.
Team T.P. at their final site.