2023
January
27
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

January 27, 2023
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Peter Grier
Washington editor

“This shot looks too hot. This one looks too cold. Ah but this one – the angle and the light are juuuuuust right.”

No, this is not a line from the fairy tale reboot “Goldilocks and the Three Bears of Instagram.” It’s real life. A bear in Colorado has gone viral by taking hundreds of selfies on a trail camera set up by Boulder’s Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) program.

In the pictures the bear appears to experiment with different poses and expressions. You can hear it saying to itself, “Does my fur seem too shiny in this one?”

Four hundred of the 580 photos captured recently on one camera were of this single ursine influencer. The Boulder OSMP has nine of the motion-detecting devices on its 46,000-acre land system.

The cameras “provide us a unique opportunity to learn more about how local species use the landscape around us while minimizing our presence in sensitive habitats,” said Will Keeley, senior wildlife ecologist for OSMP, on its website.

Who knew the local species were using the landscape to create content as well as provide food?

Typically, wild animals ignore trail cameras or scurry away. At night their images can be ghostly and hard to identify. “Help Identify This Trail Cam Mystery Beast” is a popular recurring story in Maine’s Bangor Daily News.

This bear may simply have been intrigued by a mysterious object. Could it really have a sense of fun?

We’ll know for sure if it discovers TikTok.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian/AP
The parents of Tyre Nichols, Mama Rose and Rodney Wells, attend a candlelight vigil for their son in Memphis, Tennessee, Jan. 26, 2023. Mr. Nichols died after he was beaten by five police officers. They have been fired, arrested, and charged with second degree murder.
Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor
Mora Independent School District second graders Alahze Martinez (left) and Aniyah Sanchez hand-make "seed bombs" full of the seeds of native grasses at Collins Lake Ranch in Cleveland, New Mexico, Nov. 4, 2022. The activity is part of a school district experiment linking environmental recovery to that of students, after last year's wildfire and flooding.

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Ukraine officials met Jan. 18 with officials of various countries in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss the postwar reconstruction of Ukraine.

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A message of love

Russell Cheyne/Reuters
A team of Dalmatians pulls its musher during a training run before this weekend's annual Aviemore Sled Dog Rally in Feshiebridge, Scotland, Jan. 26, 2023.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Have a good weekend. Come back Monday, when we’ll have a story on Memphis police and the search for safety plus accountability. 

More issues

2023
January
27
Friday
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