Spring The Bear Family and Me

The American Black Bear.

The bear that attacks more people...

than any other.

To some, they're unpredictable and dangerous.

-When I turned, the bear's head was right there.

-What, in the water?

In the water, then it grabbed me by the back of the neck.

Other people think we've got them completely wrong.

I'm Gordon Buchanan and I'm a wildlife cameraman.

I want to find out the truth about black bears.

In this series, I'm going to try

and film a bear family over three seasons.

From the moment they wake up in the spring...

..to the time they hibernate in autumn.

This is the only place in the world I can do it.

But to tell you the truth...

Oh, aye, aye, OK. I'm a little bit scared.

I've just been bitten for the first time by a bear. Whoa!

Northern Minnesota is just west of the Great Lakes,

near the border with Canada.

It's one of the last great wilderness areas in the US.

This is bear country.

The little town of Ely lies at its heart.

Thousands of people begin trips into the backwoods from here.

Bears are the one animal people do not want to meet in the forest.

I'm going to try and shoot them with a camera, not with a gun.

Bears have a big reputation...

..and they've become monsters in our imagination.

Until the moment I see one in the wild,

I'll know how I truly feel about it,

but it is an animal that I have a,

a healthy respect for and, and a fear of.

When you look into a bear's eyes, I think they've got a, they've,

they've got a mad look about them, I think.

My biggest problem will be just seeing one.

Black bears live in thick forest and are almost impossible to find.

However, in the woods just outside Ely, I have a unique opportunity

to get close to them.

That's because of one remarkable man.

He could help us reveal a side of bears that no-one has seen before.

-Hello.

-Are you Gordon?

-Hey, you've got your luggage right with ya.

-How're you doing?

Good, I'm good. Come on.

-Glad to be here.

-Yeah, come on here.

I mean, I probably know more about you than you know about me.

Dr Lynn Rogers has been a bear biologist for 44 years.

-Here, get in that side.

-Oh, ha-ha!

I was forgetting what country I was in.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're in America now.

If anyone can get me close to bears, it's Lynn.

So in a normal year they'd all still be in hibernation?

Yeah, right, yeah.

About now, the earliest ones would be coming out.

15 miles out of town is the cabin where I'll be staying.

Lynn wants to show me that there are bears living right on my doorstep.

In your professional opinion, where's the closest bear to us right now?

There's probably one bear per each one and a half square miles.

So, I dunno, could be anywhere.

Oh, oh, wow.

Whoa, ho, ho, ho...

-That is definitely bear hair.

-Yeah.

So he's wandered up here

and just scratched his back on this rough bark?

Yeah, but it's not for comfort, it's to communicate.

Every bear that comes by will smell the bear on here and stop and sniff it.

It's actually quite soft.

Yeah, it's actually really pleasant to pet a bear.

I'll take your word for it.

Is that bear?

Oh, there you go, way to go.

Those are teeth marks.

Probably a male bear.

So when the male bear stands up, he's taller than you?

Yes, right.

Yeah.

OK, here's one where, probably a bear...

I just didn't realise that they were that big.

When I think of a grizzly bear, I know that they are enormous

and I know that polar bears are enormous, black bears I always think of,

of being

little bears and these marks aren't left by a little bear.

You're talking something significantly taller than me.

No matter how big our brains are, when you're out here in the forest,

it's how big your teeth are,

how strong you are and compared to a black bear, we are nothing.

The next day I feel jet-lagged, but wake up to a magical April morning.

North of the cabin, there's pretty much nothing but wilderness

all the way to the Arctic.

It's amazing to think

in North America you've got somewhere like this.

On the other side of this lake, it is truly wild and that's why

you've got moose and wolves, bears wandering about this forest.

It's pretty much untouched and that's what makes it so special.

This vast patchwork of lakes and forest is found

nowhere else in America.

There are plenty of bears here,

but they're hidden in the trees.

Fortunately, Lynn's managed to put

radio collars on ten wild bears, which will help with the search.

Before I begin filming, there are a few basic steps I need to take.

I want to get a feel for the lie of the land and how difficult

it's going to be to track them.

-All right, guys.

-Take care out there.

I'm here with the rest of the crew.

OK, see you later.

But for this first attempt to find a bear, it's important I go alone.

That way, I don't make any noise.

I've radio-tracked animals before.

What I don't know is what a bear will do when it sees me.

I'm gonna go this way. Oh, gosh.

I'm travelling light, just in case I have to leg it.

Phew.

OK, I'm getting a really strong signal

from right over there. Very strong.

I've filmed large predators

all over the world, from tigers in the Himalayas to lions in Africa.

But bears are completely new to me.

The only way to film one will be to get as close as I dare.

It kinda feels like a bad idea doing this.

You're walking towards

an animal

that is infinitely stronger than I am, that's bigger than I am.

Um...

I can't imagine it's more scared than I am.

OK, keep walking, keep walking, keep walking,

keep walking, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going.

The signal gets louder as I get closer.

Ohh.

Oh...

Just there.

I can see it, it's about...

maybe 20 metres away.

OK, it's just standing up.

Come on, camera!

There it is.

Focus, focus. Blinking camera!

There it is. One thing that Lynn had told me was to

just announce my presence by speaking to the bear.

Hey, bear. Hey, bear.

Hey, bear!

Oh, it's got a cub!

It's got a cub with it!

Hey, bear.

I'll keep 20 metres between us because the one thing I know

about bears is that they're fast sprinters.

Hey, bear. Oh, man.

OK, it's coming towards me.

OK, it's coming towards me.

Bloody thing's walking towards me.

It's just coming up. I'm going to back off a bit.

Phew! OK.

Just keep your distance,

and I'll keep mine.

No, no, no, no. No, thank you.

No, thank you.

Not this close, thank you.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

She's coming up.

Man, she's a big bear!

No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no.

No, no, no, no. No, no, no.

Oh, man! It's like... can you see her?

Phew!

Ooh!

It's amazing. That is really quite something else.

I'm surprised by how scared I was.

It really is beyond me, I don't know why anyone would want to do that.

It's just insane.

I think I'd be a fool if I lost the fear of these bears.

They're wild animals and you have to remind yourself of that.

To record their lives in any detail, I'm going have

to get much closer than that, and stay with them for hours.

Right now, that feels impossible.

I know I'm not alone, most people are frightened of bears.

Even bear biologists are scared of them.

Most believe bears can only be followed from a distance.

They rely on remote tracking devices

which can only be put on by first trapping...

..and then tranquillizing the bear.

This is highly stressful for the animal,

and it seems to reinforce fear on both sides.

It's why most biologists have rarely seen black bears behaving normally.

Lynn's decided to do things differently.

Long ago, I realised how little you can learn

from measuring a tranquillized bear and flying over a radio-collared bear

and putting some dots on a map.

If you can't see the animal you're studying,

there's very little you can learn.

Lynn's methods are unconventional.

But he gets closer to wild bears than any other researcher.

He's my passport to filming them,

so I'll have to learn how he does it.

This morning, Lynn's giving me a crash course on how to get

so close to bears you could touch them.

Lynn has devoted the last 40 years of his life to studying these bears.

I don't think there's anyone else on the planet that knows as much

or has spent as long with black bears.

He's the best mentor I could ever have.

But then, you know, who's to say that

he's not just a complete crackpot, and he's just been lucky for 40 years?

It's me, bear.

-We're homing in on the mother and cub I met earlier.

-It's me.

She's a first-time mother and Lynn thinks

she would make a great subject to film.

It's me, bear.

He's decided to try and upgrade her radio collar

to make finding her a little easier.

What he does next blows me away.

Something no other bear expert would attempt.

It's me, bear.

-Lynn's going to try and change the collar...

-It's me, bear.

..without tranquillizing her first.

It's me, Lily. Don't worry.

Well, let's go closer.

-Did you say "Lily"?

-Yes.

-Is that her name?

-Yep, this is Lily.

-There she is.

-Is she there?

-OK, here she comes.

-Hey, look at that big bear coming.

-Is she going to approach us?

I hope so, yeah.

OK, I'll tell you what, I'm going to back off, Lynn,

and just let you do your thing.

Because it's something I'd like to just observe.

Hi, bear. It's me, bear.

I'm not getting too close to the massive black bear.

Incredible.

Hi.

Do you remember me?

You do, don't you? You do, don't you?

OK, you remember that?

I'm the grape man.

I have never seen anyone get this close to a large, wild carnivore.

Just a second.

Um-hum. It's me, it's me, all right.

This is the closest I've ever been

-to the cub.

-Really?

Oh, wow, she is cute. And have you given this one a name yet?

Oh, the cub's name is Hope.

Lily's Hope.

You and I will go up to the bear

and you will offer her food so she knows you're the one.

-Giving her some food?

-Yep.

Yeah, yeah. And you will continue to offer her food

to distract her, while I put this on.

I hadn't realised Lynn was going to rope me in on this.

What's going to be interesting, this is a bigger collar, a heavier collar

than she's used to.

Because she's just got a little collar on now.

This is bigger, this is new.

We'll see how she reacts.

It's me, bear.

Hello, Lily. It's all right, girl.

It's all right, girl.

Hello, girl. Don't worry, I'll give you something.

-I'll give you something.

-Don't be scared, Lily.

Is she going to be OK if I come down onto her level, or is that

-not a good thing to do?

-Yeah.

-Hello, girl.

-You're doing good.

Hi, girl.

Oh, wow!

No, don't be greedy.

Oh, gosh, oh, gosh.

There you go.

-OK, bear.

-Hey, hey, hey, hey.

OK, my heart's going a little bit faster than it was two minutes ago.

I'm just imagining it's a pony, not a bear.

Try to get these to fit through the holes.

Halfway through the grapes, Lynn, just to let you know!

-Uh-oh.

-All right, OK, you take these.

I keep on thinking she's going to nip me.

Now, is that tight enough? I think it is.

Now I'm going to take her heart rate.

It's a lot easier with a stethoscope.

This is surreal.

It's weird, it's just strange.

It's a very odd situation, because I've seen

animals being radio-collared before and that's normally quite

a traumatic experience for the animal, because you've got to dart them.

What is 37 times 2?

74.

That's what I thought!

Probably best not, not the time to, to be asking me mathematical problems.

-She's lovely.

-Yeah, 74 is a nice, slow, calm heart rate.

-Yeah, so she's nice and relaxed?

-Yeah.

That's your old radio collar.

Lynn, I'd like you to take my heart rate at the moment.

Doing this it suddenly makes sense, you know, why Lynn

builds such a close relationship with these animals.

It enables him to do something like this that causes much less stress

to the animal, and not only the issue of collaring them, but once you've got

this level of trust with an animal, you can follow it, you can watch it

and it will eventually ignore you.

As a cameraman, this is a perfect situation.

You've got a wild animal acting in a natural way that you're able

to follow and sit this close to, so it, for me, it is a real

unique opportunity.

Even Lynn doesn't know how mothers like Lily

learn how to raise their first baby.

If I can get Lily to accept me, I'll have an amazing chance

to document what happens.

I think the next step is learning to control my fear.

But that's easier said than done.

Many of Lynn's field assistants have bottled out in the past.

I've had a number of people quit, actually, because they see things

they didn't understand and then they...

They come in and tell me I don't wanna get killed.

One guy, he got a little ways into the woods,

he got so scared he starting throwing up,

and a week later he was gone.

I didn't fire him, he just quit.

Lynn's researcher Sue Mansfield

is the only assistant to have stayed the course.

Sue is going to help the crew keep the cameras rolling as much

as we can for the next six months, even when I'm not here.

We're hoping we'll reveal more about bears than ever before.

It's interesting how she's paralleling

the road, but not travelling on the road.

Lily's brand-new GPS collar is a huge bonus.

They send a signal to our computer every ten minutes.

It tells Sue where Lily's just been, but bears rarely stay put.

Once we're in the forest we need the radio-tracking equipment

to fine-tune the search.

Hey, bear! It sounds easy-peasy,

but the terrain makes it a nightmare for the crew, and for me.

It's me, bear.

It's not at all easy, this, because all you've got to go on

is the direction that this antennae's giving me, and I thought

she was in this direction and what it's doing is directing me

to this big, blinking rock here,

so it means I've been

dragging my backside through the forest towards the signal

and it's not a signal, it's just a bounced signal off this rock

so she's not here, she's over there.

When I first started my graduate work, my first walk

was an absolute disaster.

I was just stumbling through the woods

after her and not learning anything,

except how hard it was.

-Oh, man, get off me, ohh!

-You just have to keep with it.

I find myself going halfway towards a Lynn Rogers impersonation

in the hope that the bears think it's him and they come out to see him.

"Hey, bear,

"it's me, bear,

"old Doctor Rogers, bear."

Not working yet.

This would be a good time for Gordon to try to connect with Lily cos it,

it looks like she's bedded.

She's been in that area for, hmm, about an hour and 15 minutes.

I've got one thing on my side, Hope is tiny and needs to rest.

Finally after an hour of bushwhacking I catch up with them.

Hey, Lily. Hey, Lily.

And thankfully Lily's more concerned about her cub than me.

Through my lens I can see Hope's eyes are still blue.

Later, they'll turn brown.

Lynn's told me he's never seen a cub out of the den at such a young age.

At last I feel relaxed enough to begin filming.

Hope is totally dependent on her mother.

She needs to nurse every few minutes.

But Lily is only three-years-old and,

like all first-time mothers, she's having to learn on the job.

If she continues to accept me, and I can keep up with her,

I'll have a ringside seat to see how she and baby Hope get on.

Hey, bear. Hey, bear.

Over the next few days I return to the same spot.

Lily's allowing me to watch her, but only from a distance.

I can understand why she's anxious.

With wolves around, the forest floor is a dangerous place for a cub.

To be safe, Hope needs to learn to climb trees as soon as possible

and her instincts are already kicking in.

She's pawing at trees.

Even with the right instincts, cubs like Hope, born to first-time mothers,

have only a 50% chance of surviving their first year.

Cubs of more experienced mothers have better odds.

To help us understand how far Lily's mothering skills have to go,

Sue takes us to see June.

It's me, bear.

Here she comes.

June is Lily's own mum, and by all accounts she's a bit of a star.

Hey, girl.

She's already successfully raised five cubs, including Lily.

Her current cubs are yearlings, already into their second spring.

These two have a reputation,

a naughty reputation,

which is why Sue is here to help.

What I'm thinking is that I'm glad that I'm not you

because, um, hang on...

we've got two bears sniffing and pawing at you.

All his equipment remains intact.

Hey, bear, it's me again. And the cubs turn their attention elsewhere.

OK, don't go rooting about in my bag, please.

No, no, no, no.

Now the worst thing you could do is try and chase the bear away.

I mean, you're just looking for trouble if you do something like that.

No, don't do that, don't do that, no, no, no, it's not mine, that's hired.

He could probably do a better job than I could.

No, OK, no, ah.

Um, um, I think you've overpowered it.

Sue comes in to rescue the camera.

We refer to the yearlings as "little muggers",

and they haven't learned their manners yet.

No, well, no harm done.

Well, I would say a little nibble out of the microphone,

I've been let off lightly.

I think I've caused more damage to cameras in the past, that was OK.

And if I'd just stayed beside the camera,

that bear would have kept away from me.

It's a shock to think that these yearlings

are not much younger than Lily.

It makes me realise how quickly she's had to grow up.

It's been two weeks since Lily and Hope

first emerged from their winter den.

Lily hasn't had a decent meal since last autumn.

She's been relying on her fat reserves.

Now Hope is more mobile, she'll be travelling further

to find the food she needs.

Following them is drawing me even deeper into their world.

As Gordon hopefully can gain the trust of some wild bears,

his mission is to become ignored, so if the bears trust him enough

that they regard him as inconsequential to their lives,

he can be there. He's not a friend, but he's not an enemy.

He's not a food giver, but he's not a competitor.

He's just there and pretty soon they say,

"You're of no value whatsoever to me.

"I'm just gonna go about my life and pay no attention to you."

That's when we get scientific data.

I reckon that log was full of beetle grubs or something

because she's absolutely demolished it.

It's as if someone's thrown a hand grenade at it.

I pick through the matchwood when she moves away.

OK, this is what she was doing, ripping this open.

Just see if I can find what she was after.

You'd be quite surprised how much of their diet is made up of tiny little creatures. Easy, girl.

OK, so I am just ripping open your log, I wanted to find out

what was in here.

Lynn and Sue have taught me gestures the bears understand.

Hands up means I have no food.

To spend a little bit of time with her in this way when it's nice

and quiet in the forest,

she and Hope are just doing their thing, it's really good.

Being scared of a black bear.

Oh, what a fool.

Hey, Lily, are you checking me out?

Are you checking me out? Hey, good girl.

Bring that cub over.

Bring that cub over, OK?

You're a lovely beast.

Hey, here comes Hope.

What is that cub making all that noise for?

Look at the cub of yours, Lily.

Hello, she's very curious.

OK, we done, we done here,

we're done.

I think, I think, Lily, OK, gonna give me a kiss.

What am I doing?

I've just asked a wild bear for a kiss.

The better a person knows a bear, the more they like 'em.

Because as you get to know 'em, you get to realise

they're not the dangerous animals we once thought

and so a person can get to feel close to a certain bear,

but if you feel that way too quickly,

it could be just one action on the bear's part destroys everything.

It's taken just a few weeks

for me to feel really connected with this family.

Lily, are you interested?

But today, she doesn't come straight up

and take the greeting from my hand.

She's nervous about something.

I think there's a tree squeaking over there.

It's me, Lily.

A grape or two?

That's the deal,

you and I, we're gonna be friends.

Yeah, we're gonna be good friends.

I almost patted her there.

Just seems a natural thing to do.

Every time I see Lily, Hope plucks up a little bit more courage.

I'm gonna put my hand out to your cub, is that OK?

Oh, no,

wow, Hope.

That was the first time I've touched your nose.

Oh, hello.

Are you coming closer? Are you coming closer?

Hey, I don't really have to tell you

how magical this is, because who in the world wouldn't want to do this?

OK, hey, girl. I'm sorry,

no, no. Ow.

I've just been bitten for the first time by a bear.

She just bit my leg.

It's OK, it wasn't a bite. Um...

I was just looking up at Hope when I wasn't keeping an eye on Lily

and what she was doing, she just grabbed my leg with her teeth.

I wouldn't call it a bite, it's not a bite. It's just a,

a warning, really.

Huh, funny how quickly it changes.

OK, Lily. I don't have anything.

Good bear. Hey, bear.

OK, that lip-smacking is her letting me know that she's nervous.

I think Lily, I am gonna stand up. OK, bear.

Hey, Lily, I'm gonna stand up.

Hey, girl, I'm just gonna back away, you're not too happy.

Hope's been scared by this.

I ain't got nothing.

No, off you go.

I realise now that Lily was giving me hints to back off

and I wasn't listening.

Hey, Lily. I'm just gonna move.

That was me being told off.

It's just a bit of a shock.

You're going hoochy-coochy, hoochy-coochy to a baby bear

on this side and you've got Mummy Bear

suddenly putting her jaws round your upper thigh.

She just went like this and grabbed on like that, ohh.

There's no blood or anything, it's not,

it's,

it's just a test bite and it's not even a bite, cos a bite, I always think,

draws blood or leaves a mark. That was more just a,

a caress with her teeth.

Hope, we might have to call the fire brigade

to get you down out of there.

It looks as if someone's stuck a toy teddy up in the tree.

Hey, Hope!

On a positive note, Hope's climbing's coming on!

Biting is a part of communication.

It doesn't mean the bear's attacking, it's just communicating.

They have great control over the power of their jaws

so they can just grab your arm to tell you, "Don't.

"You know, no pressure, but just telling ya, no, I don't like that."

Or they can give a quick, light bite, or it could be harder.

Being bitten was completely my fault,

but it's left me feeling a bit rattled.

I know bears do attack and injure people and I want to find out

why that happens.

Jeremy Cleaveland and his son Jamie have agreed to meet me

to tell me about their experience on a canoe trip 23 years ago.

We had a nice breakfast, bacon and eggs and probably

the smell of that bacon grease has brought this bear into the campsite.

Jamie said, "Look, Dad, there's a bear," and about 30 feet away,

here comes this bear out of the woods.

They say you're supposed to bang pots and pans together

and jump around, what we did, pots and pans were all packed up, so...

The first thing I decided to do was I'd said, "I'm gonna take the food

"and go down the hill with that and put the canoe in the water."

Then almost immediately, it turned and started for me.

I learned later you're never supposed to run from a bear,

but it seemed like the appropriate action at that moment so I,

I, and I came over the bank and dove straight in

and swam out about 100 feet and then I was worried where Jamie

had gotten to and when I turned, the bear's head was right there.

-What, in the water?

-In the water.

Because the Cleavelands were in a remote area, they didn't know

that the same bear had attacked somebody else the previous day.

Everything went on automatic at that point.

It bit me in the thigh first

and then I tried to push it off and it bit me in the arm and the shoulder

and at that point, I realised I had to try to get away, so I again turned

and tried to get away from it and it grabbed me by the back of the neck

and at that point of course, I was completely helpless.

So then I went into the water and took the two of them to shore,

dragged 'em to shore and the first thing I tried to do

was I put my hand in the bear's mouth, I tried to open the bear's mouth.

So the bear's still got a hold of your father at this point?

Yes, and he's shaking him back and forth.

And I, and I had tried to, to push the bear off my, you know, I was down

on all fours, or on two, on my knees and I tried to push the bear off,

but that jaw was just like a vice, I couldn't move it.

So then I took the canoe paddle, hit him by the back of the neck

and it dropped him, then we got him.

Well, the paddle broke at that point, yeah.

And if Jamie hadn't been there?

I would have died.

There's just no question.

I don't think there's any way I would have escaped if he hadn't been there.

The rogue bear was hunted down and killed by rangers the next day.

Lynn investigated the incident

and found that the bear was seriously underweight.

It probably attacked because it was starving.

This was a very rare and exceptional case.

I need to remind myself I'm more likely to be killed by lightning

than a bear.

What's also helped is I've begun to see bears in a different light.

This spring, I feel I've become part of a little bear family.

But my time with them on this visit is running out.

Every day I spend on their trail seems precious.

I don't want to miss out on any of Hope's growing up.

Right...

Oh, give me a desert, please.

Now, she's not climbing these trees because she's scared.

I don't think, I think she's just testing her skills.

She's picking at every variety of tree

that she possibly can and seeing if she can climb it.

When you think about it,

these bears, cubs have to learn a huge amount.

Amazing to think that this little cub within a year

is gonna be on its own.

But while Hope's with Lily, she can learn by making mistakes.

Like avoiding trees over water.

It's really sweet to see how Lily coaxes Hope out of danger.

Maybe she's better at this mothering thing than I first thought.

The more time I spend with them,

the more I'm falling under their spell.

It's already May. Soon I have to go back to the UK.

The bears remind me why I want to return as soon as possible.

They start putting on a show.

They're telling each other they're available by rubbing scent

everywhere they can.

Love, it seems, is in the air.

June will be coming into heat this year.

Once the mating season starts her yearlings will be on their own.

And June will finally get some time to herself.

Lily can smell that the breeding season has begun.

But what's weird is that she begins to react, too.

She's just stomping about like that.

She's scent marking

but a mother with such a young cub

shouldn't mate again until next year.

I've got no idea what's going on.

It's quite odd.

It's going to be dark in about half an hour,

so I think I'm going to have to leave Lily and Hope.

OK, Lily, where are you heading to?

I haven't got a clue.

These bears...

These bears are something else.

Bye-bye.

Tomorrow I leave for seven weeks.

It's a chance to see my own family.

But I had no idea a remarkable drama

would start to play out after I left.

Fortunately the crew who stayed on were able to record what happened.

They film Lily climbing down a tree,

leaving Hope alone.

It seems her head has been turned by a male and she starts

following his scent trail.

It's not unusual for a mother to leave a cub for a few hours,

but as evening approaches Sue realises something's wrong.

After six hours I went out

to the location where I had last seen them together and I listened.

And it sounded like

some animal, possibly Hope, was scurrying around among the trees.

Because of the GPS on Lily, I knew where she was,

and she was several miles away.

That evening a storm arrives.

Lynn and Sue think Lily tried to get back to Hope.

We suspect that Lily couldn't find Hope's scent at that point,

that the scent had been washed away.

Lily is obviously missing Hope.

I would just imagine this cub is scared

and hungry

and desperately wanting her mother.

Hope is still dependent on Lily's milk,

and too young to survive on her own.

When I took Lynn out to show him the red pine where I had last seen Hope,

there on the side of the road was a fresh sign that either a wolf

or a coyote had been around.

I think,

I think the chances of them getting back together now are getting slimmer

by the day.

I don't know what to think, is she dead?

Did Lily find Hope's body?

By the fifth day Lynn and Sue believe that Hope is dead.

Even when a neighbour reports seeing a lone bear cub, Lynn is pessimistic.

It's a long way from where Hope was last seen.

It's hard to believe that this is Hope out here actually

because it's just so far.

OK.

She was on the... Came down, she went, she went down.

-OK.

-Did you see her?

-Yeah.

It's me, bear,

-it's me.

-Don't you think that's her?

-It's gotta be her, right?

-Yep.

-Yeah.

Amazingly, it is Hope.

This tiny cub has walked over two miles back to where she was born.

Ah. Sue's happy.

You're going to make me cry!

But finding Hope puts Lynn in a dilemma.

There were so many thoughts went through my mind about what's going

to happen to this cub, what should I do as a researcher,

how much should I get involved, should I interfere

and help them get back together?

What is the right thing to do here?

Hope is starving. Should Lynn intervene to save her,

or should he let nature take its course?

Here's what we could use.

He's made his decision.

I don't know if you have kennel carrier kind of thing?

You do?

Lynn tries to attract Hope down the tree with a stick dipped in milk.

Hope is so hungry she's prepared to overcome her fear.

Come on, come down. It's me, bear.

Come on down, it's OK.

But Hope is a wild animal.

And she's feisty.

BEAR GROWLS

BEAR SCREAMS

Lynn, Lynn?

Well, I'm just wondering what's going to happen next.

I'm really wondering how

Lily will feel.

Lily is just a mile away.

Lynn is going to try and reunite them...

But he's in unchartered territory.

The borrowed pet carrier has a faulty latch.

Now what?

It's a disaster.

Lynn needs to come up with a new plan.

It's me, bear.

He decides to try to find Lily,

but with the sun setting he doesn't have long.

It's me, bear.

He's found her, just a few hundred metres into the woods.

He tries to lead her to where Hope was last seen.

After so many days apart, Lynn fears Lily may not accept her cub.

Just an outpouring of pure animal emotion

is the strongest I've ever seen.

Little Hope bawling and bawling

for wanting to nurse and be with her mother and have that contact.

And the mother responding with, "Uh, uh, uh,"

which means, "I want you."

This is one of the most satisfying moments in my research.

It's me, bear, don't worry.

Well, let's just go back to the van and be thankful.

I'm going to sleep good tonight.

Next time, I return in the summer to find that Lily and Hope's lives

have taken another dramatic turn.

Hope's not feeding properly, she's weak and struggling to survive.

Lynn wonders whether he has made the right decision to re-unite them.

And I don't know how far we should go to save Hope's life.