Week 4:
Exploring the Exhibits

June 23, 2017

I started out week #4 celebrating Father’s Day.  I was not able to spend Father’s Day with my own father, but I did send him a nice card and called him.  I did, however, spend Father’s Day with Ted.

In the wild, black bears are solitary creatures with exception of mating and raising cubs (and it is only the females that raise cubs).  So, male black bears aren’t really father figures in the wild.

Ted, however, was born to a captive mother and raised in captivity.  He arrived at the North American Bear Center when he was 10 years old, and Lucky at the time was only a 7-month-old cub.  Ted slowly gained Lucky’s trust and then helped raise Lucky- acting as both mother and father.  They even denned together that winter showing that they had a strong bond.  This is something you wouldn’t find among wild bears.

Eventually Lucky grew up to be a young, strong bear and his relationship to Ted changed from playmate to competition to be the dominant male, so now they no longer play together and are kept separate.  It doesn’t change the fact that Ted helped raise Lucky, and for that, Happy Father’s Day, Ted.

Also, this week, we saw Holly and Tasha playing with each other through the fences.  This is encouraging because this might mean that once estrus is over we can have Holly and Tasha out in the big enclosure together!

One day we cleaned Ted’s personal 600-gallon pool in his enclosure and then we put chlorine in the pond area to help rid it of the algae.  Unfortunately, the chlorine levels were too high the next day and none of the bears could come out of their personal enclosures.  I felt terrible.  Holly in particular could not be consoled.  She would refuse food and just pace her enclosure constantly.  And what was worse, was when she gave up and laid down in her den in a depressed state.  I was glad that the water was safe the next day and that she was free to roam.

During that time, our visitors got to see more of our indoor exhibits since they couldn’t see the bears.  One popular exhibit is how to handle black bears and camping since that is a popular topic up here in the north woods.  We have people come from all over and tell us THEIR experience with black bears.  It is fascinating and varies from fearful to fascinated.  My favorite part of that exhibit is where it lists how to scare black bears away from your camp.  It isn’t difficult since they have a prey animal mindset of “run first, ask questions later”.   But my favorite item listed is a supersoaker.  I asked Judy, the director of education, if I could have one to keep the chipmunks out of the food shed.  She laughed, but said no.

Another cool exhibit is that of the giant short-faced bear, which is an extinct species.  It was the largest carnivorous mammal during the ice age and would chase down prey.  I find it very impressive.

There is also the North Woods Ecology Hall which talks about all the creatures that black bears coexist with here in northern Minnesota.  That is where my painted turtles, Myrtle and Spencer, are and where I give presentations about them.

I love working with animals and it is definitely something I see myself doing in the future, but I just do not know which animal I want to work with in the future.  I really enjoy working with turtles and bears, not so much frogs and snakes, so at least I am narrowing it down!

I also got to meet Dr. David Mech this week!  He has studied wolves for over 50 years and I heard him speak during my Wolves and Northwoods Predators course this past January.  He is also the founder of the International Wolf Center on the other side of Ely.  He and a board member of the bear center stopped in Friday morning to check out our Northwoods Ecology Hall!

Later that day, I got to hear Dr. Lynn Rogers speak to a group of students from University of Minnesota his work.  It was inspiring to hear that he knew he wanted to work with animals, but he was also uncertain.  He said that he was actually a mailman for seven years before he got into his work with white-tailed deer or bears.  It is good to know that I don’t need to know or plan everything for my future now.

I also got to meet Heidi Pinkerton who is a phenomenal photographer up here in Northern Minnesota.  She has beautiful nature photos, but absolutely stunning photos of the Northern Lights.  One of my goals is to see the Northern Lights before my internship ends this summer, but with all the clouds and rain as of late, the timing hasn’t been right.

I have also been appreciating the flowers and butterflies that have been coming up around the bear center.

One thing that I learned a little more about this week was the budgeting of a nonprofit.  Scott, our director, sat the interns down and handed us last year’s budget for everything.  The North American Bear Center has only been in operation for 10 years, but he talked about losses and successes.  Projects he could afford to fund and unexpected costs.  The North American Bear Center relies solely on admissions, gift shop purchases, and donations; it does not receive any governmental aid.  It really opened my eyes to how passionate everyone that works/volunteers at the bear center is and how supportive our world network is.