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Surprise!

Keepers clean the filter basket for the bear pool out daily. Mostly what comes out of the basket is leaves, bear fur, random slim, algae, and depending on the season bunches of frogs. Look what they found recently:Read more

Bear Awareness Week!!

Okay Sports Fans, here it is!  The start of a week which revolves around our fuzzy and lovable friends!  They eat a bunch, they sleep a bunch, they shed a bunch – no they’re not Italians – they’re our Bears!  It’s officially Bear Awareness Week!  And we here at the Museum are lucky enough to have 5 of the lovable fuzz buckets that we call part of the family to enjoy each day.  Gus, Ursula, Mimi, Virginia and Yona areRead more
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Behind-the-scenes Special Program: Bear Feeding

Every now and then the Museum offers special opportunities for Members to experience some behind-the-scenes aspects of life at the museum. This past Sunday, Animal Department Director Sherry Samuels led an enthusiastic group of parents and children down to the bear exhibit to help feed the bears (I tagged along and took some photos). Normally, visitors are never allowed to feed any of the animals! Each animal has a special diet which must be followed for their health and wellness.Read more

Stumped

The City of Durham donated 6 huge tree stumps to the Museum.  We had 4 put into the bear yard, 1 in with Max and Chummix, and 1 in with Lightning and the little goats.  While the bears were locked in the house we took the time to scoop the yard and add more hay to their sleeping spots.  Here are a couple pictures of the bears checking out the stumps.  This is really great enrichment for the animals.  Smelling, climbing,Read more

Yona on ice

With the cold weather we’ve been having recently (especially in the evenings), the moat in our bear exhibit has frozen over sooner than usual. We always expect freezing of the moat to occur in late January and through February, but this winter it has happened in December! Even with temperatures now getting warmer during the day and typically melting any ice or snow on the ground, the warmer weather doesn’t necessarily thaw the ice in the moat because it doesn’tRead more