Where's a Bear?

by Janis Connell

Title

Where's a Bear?

Artist

Janis Connell

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

No, I didn't get this close to a bear. Well, I did but he was safely in a outdoor habitat at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone. It's a must see if you get to West Yellowstone.

The bears have a large outdoor habitat that includes many natural features that gives them a comfortable and stimulating environment to roam in. The animal care staff rotates a combination of bears into the habitat throughout the day. Keepers also hide food in the habitat, stock the pond with live trout and rearrange features regularly. The bears are healthy both physically and mentally and exhibit all kinds of natural bear behavior throughout the day making them a delight to watch.

To show us how bears are attracted to food left out by us humans, the keepers hid a bird feeder filled with sunflower seeds. Then they released a few bears into the outdoor habitat. It took about three minutes for the bear to find the bird feeder high up in a tree. He wasn't very graceful climbing the tree, but he did it very quickly to get the high calorie prize of bird seed.

In bear country, you can't even leave bird seed out without attracting bears. Bears that learn to obtain food from humans often become increasingly bold and aggressive in their efforts to obtain these foods. They may damage vehicles, tents and other property. In rare instances bears that learn to obtain human foods even enter tents and attack people, resulting in injury and sometimes death.

Be bear aware! We are now the proud owners of bear spray and take it with us on hikes in bear country. And it can be used for personal protection on our RV!

Uploaded

January 15th, 2017

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