I’ve watched Virginia, our black bear that has been at the Museum since June 2005, grow from a 15 pound cub still on a bottle to a full-grown black bear. We noticed many months ago she had an intermittent yet recurring limp. It never stopped her from doing anything but it just wasn’t going away no matter what variety of treatments we provided. Diagnosis has been a challenge, but we had a team from NCSU College of Veterinary Medicine outRead more
Posts tagged: #black bears
Studying Aggressive Behavior in Mimi Bear!
Earlier this year, around May/June we noticed that Mimi (one of our Black Bears) was displaying aggressive behavior towards the keepers. When we would open up the bear house at closing she would charge at us, sometimes huff or spit or pace the fence line. While this behavior isn’t completely atypical for Mimi it seemed to come out of no where and with an increase in frequency. We already knew it didn’t matter which keeper was opening the house as sheRead more
Mimi Takes a Shower
Welcome to summer in the South. It’s hot. Mimi, one of our female black bears, has taken to coming to visit whomever is cleaning the bear house in the morning to get sprayed down with the hose. She’s been especially cute as the temperatures have gotten hotter. Last Sunday, I managed to coordinate my cellphone and the hose well enough to get some of her morning shower on video! Watch below!Read more
A Keeper’s Point of View, Part 2
I wrote about the beginning of my day in my last post. It showed my point of view as Gus was waking up from a night of sleeping on the cliff. This series of pictures was taken on the same day. After checking the bear fence, I checked the lemurs and the wolves. By the time I got to the bear house he had climbed down the cliff and was making his way over to the bear house. I amRead more