Week 6:
Playing Around

July 10, 2017

Mating season is officially over!  And with that came the nerve wrecking moment of reintroducing Holly and Tasha after being separated for 6 weeks!  They had been playing through the fences leading up to this moment which is always a good sign.

The morning of, we all gathered around the enclosures and opened Tasha’s enclosure and then Holly’s.  We held our breath a little to see what the interaction would be…and it was Tasha initiating play.  Then Holly reciprocating play.  They would both get up on their hind legs and spar and run around and it was perfect.  We know it is play and not fighting because play is silent while fighting is highly vocalized.  We will be keeping an eye on them though in coming weeks, because Holly can tire out of play and be a little mean.  We have seen her do this to Lucky.

The bears do not have to be the only ones to play with each other though!  We have a tuggie, which is large tug o’war dog toy that we play with the bears with.  I got a chance to play tug o’war with Holly by putting one end through the fence of her enclosure and her pulling on it while I held on.  The only reason she wasn’t able to pull it all the way through (because she is much stronger than I am) was because the middle knot of the toy often gets caught on the fence.

I celebrated the fourth of July by getting up early and running the “Janet Gensler Memorial 4 on the 4^th”.  Not everyone’s ideal morning, but I have been running some since arriving in Ely six weeks ago and I felt pretty good about doing the fun run.  The race itself was Trezona Trail, a 4-mile which goes around Miner’s Lake, and it is a combination of nature trails and city sidewalks.

I was then able to attend the fourth of July parade that afternoon.  It surprised me- it was an 1 ½ hrs and was very entertaining the whole time.  My favorite parts were the clown band (which played actual music, not just noise), the lawn chair ladies who did dance routines with lawn chairs, and the Zup’s food market which tossed out not only full candy bars, but boxes of turkey stuffing!

That evening all of the interns went to Shagawa Lake to cookout and kayak.  We made it back to our dorms at Vermilion Community College just in time to see the fireworks perfectly from the 3^rd floor balcony.

At the end of the week, one of the monarch caterpillars formed a chrysalis.  In two weeks it should emerge as a butterfly!