Lugnut the Bear doesn’t do much this time of year.
Sometimes she lies on her left side. Other times she lies on her right side. She sleeps. And snores. And every once in a while, she shakes off the semislumber to make sure her two cubs are still present, accounted for and fed.
Not the typical reality show fare that today’s hip viewers crave, you’d think.
But thousands of viewers have been riveted by real-time video of Lugnut (and, as of Jan. 16, her two cubs), who live underneath an uprooted sugar maple tree in northern Maine.
“It melts your heart,” said Randy Cross, a Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologist who helped place the camera in Lugnut’s den. “It’s almost 100 percent women who say, ‘I can’t tear myself away from this.’ My sister … my mother … she’s watching it all the time.”
The bear den camera is the brainchild of Bert and Hank Goodman and their father, Dale, and is a cooperative effort between the DIF&W and the Wildlife Research Foundation, which was founded by the Goodmans after a den visit last year.
Cross, who conducts winter den visits to female bears that the state has previous captured and fitted with radio collars, said the Goodmans were visibly moved by the experience when they tagged along in March.
“Bert looked at Hank or Hank looked at Bert — I can’t remember which — and said, ‘You know what? Nobody else in the world is holding a bear cub right now. I bet we’re the only ones. We each have a bear cub. This is really special,’” Cross recounted.
That moment helped spur the Goodmans to found the Wildlife Resarch Foundation, according to Cross.
“They were really taken by the [ongoing bear research] project and they really wanted to help in any way that they could,” Cross said. “That was the end of March. About a month or so later Bert talked to me about his idea to raise money to help with our project. And also, they had a broader scope: They wanted to accept proposals for all types of wildlife research.”
On Thursday, Hank Goodman referred questions to the foundation’s spokesperson, Edie Smith, saying he preferred Smith to talk to the public about the project. Smith explained that the Goodmans feel that speaking as individuals — the family runs a guiding business — would defeat the foundation’s purpose by focusing attention on them rather than the collective efforts of many. Smith said the family feels support of the foundation — and donations to fund future wildlife research — will be greater if that approach is followed.
In a video on the Wildlife Research Foundation’s website, Hank Goodman succinctly explains the group’s goals.
“It is our mission to raise funds for the scientific community and the wildlife managers,” Goodman said. “And also to educate the public [about the] necessities of wildlife research.”
To that end, the foundation is seeking donations that will be used to fund future wildlife research on all kinds of critters.
In order to drum up some support, the Goodmans floated the den camera idea to Cross, who pointed out that the department had considered installing a den camera back in 2001, and opted not to do so. The thought at the time, he said, was that a lot of effort and DIF&W money would go into the project, and benefits might be slight.
“We’re not really in that kind of business,” Cross said. “It works better for private organizations or a foundation like this to do something like that as a support group for wildlife research in general.”
But when a foundation was willing to foot the bill, Cross recognized the public relations and education benefits could be enormous.
And the bear den cam has been a hit.
Want proof? Put the video up on your work computer, turn the volume way up, sit back … and wait. It won’t take long before you’re surrounded by ooh-ing, coo-ing coworkers who want to hear the whole story … and who want to catch a glimpse of the elusive (but often loud-mouthed) cubs.
Cross, whose regular bear den survey crew was among the dozen people who took part in the project, said that Lugnut was not actually his first choice as a spokes-bear (or, if you prefer, sleep-bear).
He wanted an older bear, but after efforts to wire the dens of 15-year-olds Spunky and Nell failed, he decided to give Lugnut a try.
Spunky decided to move to another den, Cross surmises, because an essential power station that the group set up disturbed her. Nell also moved on after two and a half days under video surveillance after the generator quit and a crew had to go back and restart it.
“So [the crew was] very discouraged at that point. They were wondering if it was possible,” Cross said. “And we still only had ankle-deep snow.”
Cross explained that deeper snow would have made the bears more apt to stay put and tolerate small disturbances. A lack of snow made them feel more mobile and more willing to relocate.
Another factor: Cross said that though similar projects had been conducted elsewhere, he and the others were learning on the fly.
“It’s sort of like a redneck project,” Cross said with a laugh. “We’re flying by the seat of our pants a little bit. They went to Walmart and bought 12 100-foot extension cords and taped them all together and that’s what’s powering the infrared light inside. They’ve been solving problems as they come to them.”
And on the third try, the crew succeeded: The power station was moved back to 1,200 feet from Lugnut’s tree abode, and fiber-optic cable was used to make that possible.
“We put [the camera] in later than I would have liked. I would have liked to have had two weeks before [the cubs were born] so people could wait and listen for the birth and we could get it all up [on the website],” Cross said.
The den was wired on Jan. 11. The cubs were born on Jan. 16, before the website was complete operational. But on Thursday, Hank Goodman said that the video of the birth was actually captured and an eight-minute version of it will be added to the foundation’s site soon.
Cross said that he knows some will criticize the foundation’s efforts and the DIF&W’s partnership in the den camera project. He said some might object to disturbing the bears in their dens each winter.
“We inconvenience them every winter in order to gain the information that we feel is necessary to better manage the entire bear population,” Cross said. “It benefits all the bears in the state in that it’s a long-term monitoring project and it keeps us on top of the bear happenings, what’s going on out there.”
And he said the partnership with the Wildlife Research Foundation presented a unique opportunity.
“People like to complain, but it’s not often that someone steps up and says, ‘I’m going to take this money out of my pocket and make something happen. I’ve got this idea and I think it’s going to work,’” Cross said.
You can also find the bear den video at the BDN Outdoors website, at bangordailynews.com/link/watch-mama-bear-lugnut-and-her-cubs/.
So why are we baiting and shooting these animals in the face?
revenue, jobs, and population management.
Game management. Don’t pretend you don’t understand it.
That’s what makes America great, you don’t have to be involved in game management if you don’t choose to.
obviously you must not hunt anyone who shoots a bear in the face should stay on the couch, that way we wont have to go looking for you.
While the bear population in Maine is not in jeopardy, I would much prefer they just leave the bears alone in their dens. What gives us the right to molest their habitat, inject a sleeping sow with a tranquilizer dart just to measure their teeth, cuddle her cups and to give them cute names like “Lugnut” and “Spunky”. Perhaps it is the biologists that are the real lugnuts around here. I know of one incident where a sleeping mother bear was jabbed with a tranquilizer dart, when the startled mother reacted by biting the head of one of her little cubs. This type of intrusive study should be used only when there is a specific decline in the bear population or when desease occurs, not to place a camera there for our entertainment. Leave them to hell alone.
DIF&W isn’t “molesting” bears or any other wildlife. Game management includes monitoring and protecting the health of wildlife and its habitat. The DIF&W biologists who are dedicated to this task are not “lugnuts” as you claim, they are protecting the wildlife you are so fond of. Your belief that they should intervene only after disease or famine has begun to ravage sounds cruel to me.
And, one reason DIF&W is”protecting” the bear in Maine is because bear hunting here means big revenue for DIF&W in license fees, etc. Having bears terrified by chasing hounds likewise sounds cruel to me, much akin to when they used to use hounds to chase black slaves trying to escape to freedom. Why is it a hunter cannot use dogs to hunt deer while they can for bear?
You made no mention of hunting in your original post, nor did I mention hunting in my reply. The newspaper story had nothing to do with hunting and was all about protecting the health of black bears. You said that biologists should intervene only after the black bear population has begun to decline or after disease has set in. Do you stand by your statement?
Hunting when done right, like in nearly every state helps maintain the bear population. However you made no mention of it in your original post, so now I guess you are grasping at anything to be a negative “Nancy”. Back to the original point, they are doing these things….like measuring teeth, blood samples, etc in order to get out ahead of a potential disease or illness that could clean out a large portion of the bear population. Inturn these diseases and illness’s could be passed onto other species within the predator prey food chain.
“Predator prey food chain!?!” OMG do you mean these animals are killing each other! : )
I couldnt agree more, if we dont know enough about bear and their life by now we never will. If you and i go poking around a den we would be charged with disturbing wildlife so they justify putting a camera in the den and call it research ! Some things are left unknown , our bear population is some of the best in the country and the inland fisheries will screw it up eventually just like they screwed the deer population up by restoring the TURKEY population in Maine !
There are three study areas, with about 90-100 bears total surveyed. The biologists monitor the cub mortality rate. The weight of the mother and yearlings helps to determine how much food they were able to get during the season gone by. Blood samples from the mother and yearlings give the biologists an idea of how much meat the the family ate in the previous year.
The data help the biologists determine whether there are changes in the bears’ ability to get food from their habitat and to see what the overall health of the bears being studied is.
If the health (or survival rate or growth for yearlings) of the bears has declined, then the biologists know of potential problems ahead of time, and the number of bear permits can be decreased to ensure the population is sustained.
North American Bear Center in Ely has had a den cam for three years. It is wonderful to watch. I hope the ME den cam will also educate people about Black Bears. Good Luck
I would rather someone get outdoors and learn about bear than to put a camera in a bear den ! If you cant get outdoors to learn then lets do it the old fashion way . Find somebody who has like me and most of us that have worked guiding hunters and outdoors people can teach you so much more than a camera will ever teach you. A great example was a stroll through Bangors city forest one day gave me the opportunity to let two fine ladies out for a beautiful day of walking that the mark on a sapling they had noticed wasnt where a beaver tried to chew it , rather wear a majestic buck rubbed the velvet off his antlers and purposely left a sign to all other bucks in the area by doing so ! The message he left was if you wander into this part of the forest and think you are going to service my does be ready for a RUMBLE ! LOVE the outdoors and the more i learn about it the more i think god give it to us so we didnt have to watch tv for our entertainment !
Here’s good news for these cute little cubs, when they become legal targets for hunters-it’s against the law for them to be chased by more than six dogs.
why dont you do a little homework before you post on a subject you obviously know nothing about? Hunting is part of a process that keeps the species as a whole healthy and under controll. Do you want bears in your back yard, getting into your trash? attacking your pets? I am sure you would be one of the first ones to complain if that happened.
Hunters are also the ones that pay extremely high fees to hunt wildlife which is how Maine gets most of the money to do research to protect the species , or thats supposedly where its suppose to go . Im not so sure it all goes where it should after new 4 -wheelers and pick-ups being bought at an alarming rate. And another thing, why must our law enforcement drive around in unmarked vehicles ? I know how most people are going to answer this. But think about this , if your your young son or daughter needed a law enforcement officer to help them and there wasnt any markings on the vehicle , wouldnt that possibly make it difficult to get help from said officer ? In my case i had a father who had Alzheimers and got lost , a unmarked game wardens truck passed him undetected 3 times and he didnt go to him because he thought it was just a regular person not looking for him !