Temperatures will continue to fall over the next few days

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

A biologist says the death of a black bear is
a blow to his research and to the northern Minnesota bear center
that streamed her birth live on the Internet two years ago.


      Lynn Rogers, founder of the North American Bear Center in Ely,
told The Associated Press he was looking forward to documenting the
dynamics of Hope's family as she matured. When he announced this
week that a hunter had killed Hope, it generated an outpouring of
grief and outrage among the more than 133,000 fans that follow Hope
and her mother Lily on Facebook.


      Rogers has lost study bears to hunters before, but he said
researchers had never before been able to follow a mixed-age bear
family so closely, and that what they saw defied their
expectations. Hope continued to nurse even after Lily gave birth
last winter to two new cubs. While one soon died, Lily, Hope and
the surviving cub, Faith, continued to roam together until a hunter
shot Hope on Sept. 16.


      "There was peace," Rogers said of the family. Hope didn't try
to dominate Faith or steal all of Lily's milk. Hope even acted like
a second mother, he said, waiting for Faith to catch up when she
straggled behind.


      If Hope had survived, Rogers said, they might have gotten the
chance to watch the family break up next spring. Hope would have
been old enough to go into heat, so she and Lily would have had to
compete for mates, and all three would have competed for territory,
he said.

Gallery

Hope, famed Internet bear, reported killed by hunter

A biologist says the death of a black bear is
a blow to his research and to the northern Minnesota bear center.

Bear expert says Hope's death is blow to research

Go Deeper.

Like this?