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SPEAKER: As you know it's bear hunting season in Minnesota, and that's always a nerve-wracking time of year for Lynn Rogers. So far this year, none of the bears the controversial researcher is studying near Ely have been shot. But last month, the DNR shot a bear with one of Roger's tracking collars on it. The animal had refused to leave an area where kids were present. As Dan Kraker reports, that bear's death lies at the heart of a long-standing tension between Rodgers and mainstream wildlife scientists.

DAN KRAKER: There are lots of slogans. Never feed a bear. A fed bear is a dead bear. Don't feed the bears. But that's exactly what Lynn Rogers does. He feeds Bears right out of his hand to gain their trust so he can more closely observe their behavior. On this day, Rogers is hoping that trust will help him track a bear named June, a female he's been studying for nearly a decade.

LYNN ROGERS: Where'd she go?

SUE MANSFIELD: She's heading down towards the clover patch.

DAN KRAKER: Rogers assistant sue Mansfield is tracking June from the front seat of Rogers van. The bear's GPS collar sends a signal to Mansfield's iPad. The small screen displays several dots moving across a map. Each dot represents a bear wearing one of Rogers' collars. The road reaches a dead end. We hop out and start bushwhacking through a dense forest of birch and fir. Rogers is 73. But he strides easily over moss-covered logs and boulders. Every so often, he stops and holds a radio antenna over his head trying to locate June.

SUE MANSFIELD: So we need to drift back.

DAN KRAKER: It's a couple of days before the start of hunting season, and Rogers is anxious to add bright fluorescent ribbons to June's collar to identify her as a research subject. It's not illegal for hunters to shoot research bears. But the DNR asks hunters not to.

LYNN ROGERS: It's me, bear. It's me, June. Don't run. You're OK.

DAN KRAKER: Finally, after more than a half hour of hiking, we're starting to catch up to June. Sue Mansfield adds her voice to the chorus.

SUE MANSFIELD: It's me, June. She knows that my voice means that she's likely to get a handful of nuts. And if that happens to be important to her at this time, she'll hold up.

DAN KRAKER: And soon, she does. At a clearing, Rogers and Mansfield stop, and June emerges from the woods like a shadow. She ambles straight to Rogers who then does something most scientists would never do-- he feeds her a mound of pecans right out of his hand.

LYNN ROGERS: Well, you led us on quite a trip. You couldn't hear us at first, huh?

DAN KRAKER: June lies down next to Rodgers on the forest floor like a big 300-pound pet. Mansfield changes the batteries in June's GPS collar. She seems oblivious to a microphone and a camera literally inches from her snout. Rogers says this is why June is so valuable to his research.

LYNN ROGERS: Because she will go about her business ignoring us. She just goes about foraging or nursing or digging a den.

DAN KRAKER: June is one branch of a family tree Rogers and Sue Mansfield have been studying for a decade. They're examining details of their social organization, body language, and basically, what it's like to be a bear. Providing food, Rogers argues, is the only way he can document those behaviors.

LYNN ROGERS: We can see it, and you have to be in the woods. You have to be close to see them. If you try to get close to a bear that doesn't accept you, all you see is a bear running away and you can't learn much from that.

DAN KRAKER: Rogers points out Jane Goodall provided bananas to gain access to chimps, although she later abandoned the practice, and it's now controversial in primatology. Rogers approach and his den cams have won him an intensely loyal online following. Over 140,000 Lily fans follow his research Bears on Facebook. He's gained international prominence through documentaries on the BBC and Animal Planet. People pay $2,500 to attend a three-day class with him. But Rogers practice of feeding bears has also made him controversial, both in Minnesota and among his scientific colleagues. Biologist John Beecham chairs an international group studying human bear conflicts.

JOHN BEECHAM: If he sticks to his objective of learning more about their behavior, probably, he'll learn some things that are really interesting, and that we would all like to hear about.

DAN KRAKER: But Beecham is concerned Rodgers has another motive.

JOHN BEECHAM: To basically show people that bears aren't as ferocious as the media would have you believe. Then he gets into pretty thin ice.

DAN KRAKER: Rogers in fact is unapologetic about that. He says that's the most important thing he's found, that black bears are not ferocious animals. Beecham agrees black bears are generally docile and fearful of humans. But he says that's only half the story.

JOHN BEECHAM: If you're not careful, you can get in a situation where the bear is going to react in an unpredictable way, and somebody could get hurt.

DAN KRAKER: Minnesota DNR Spokesman Chris Niskanen says those situations are more likely to occur when bears learn they can get food from people.

CHRIS NISKANEN: If you have someone who's feeding a bear out of their pocket with peanuts, the bear is going to look at that food source and say, OK humans equal food, and that's not a good thing. That's where you can get into problems.

DAN KRAKER: And problem Bears are often shot. Lynn Rodgers doesn't dispute that inappropriately feeding bears can be dangerous to the animals. But he argues providing food can also keep bears out of trouble. He published data last year showing nuisance bear complaints around Ely dropped by more than 80% in the 1980s through a practice known as diversionary feeding.

Hungry bears were able to find food in strategic places to keep them from breaking into cabins or tipping over garbage cans. While diversionary feeding isn't officially done around Ely anymore, several people surrounding Lynn Rodgers research station do feed Bears, and they've done it for decades, not as part of any experiment to prevent nuisances, but because they want to see them up close.

DON MIDTLING: This is Lily. Everybody knows Lily if they go on Facebook.

DAN KRAKER: Don mitterling is flipping through a stack of pictures he's taken of bears in his yard, including one lounging on a lawn chair. He says he's fed bears ever since he moved down the road from Rodgers five years ago.

DON MIDTLING: If they don't have food in the woods, they're going to come to find food someplace. And as long as we feed the bears, they coexist with us, they don't do any damage to our properties.

DAN KRAKER: But Kurt Soderberg who also lives on the same road as Rodgers says neighbors like mitterling are endangering bears.

KURT SODERBERG: Frankly, the bears are put at risk. They're put at risk because they might get shot by somebody. They're going to cross the highway, they're going to get killed.

LYNN ROGERS: So are you glad you held up for us, June?

DAN KRAKER: Back in the woods, Lynn Rodgers leaves a handful of pecans for June on the forest floor, and Sue Mansfield has finished adding brightly colored strips to the bears collar.

SUE MANSFIELD: Mission accomplished, yeah.

DAN KRAKER: June disappears into the shadows of the pines, oblivious to the debate surrounding the man who has walked with her and fed her for nearly a decade. Dan Kraker, Minnesota Public Radio News, Eagles Nest Township.