Black Bear Paws

Black Bear paws are used for many things: Walking Rooting around looking for food Scratching Marking trees Climbing trees Swimming And as plates This last use is one of my favorites and all of our bears do this. Sometimes they will place a piece of food on their paw and raise their paw up to their mouth. So cute and functional.Read more

This week in ETW

Recently I added a hammock to the Ring Tailed Lemur indoor stalls. I have seen both Cassandra and Satyrus snuggled up together in it but when I reached for my camera they jumped up. I got lucky the other day and snapped a pic of Lycus lounging in it. I was working for Keeper Jill this past Saturday (who was attending the AAZK conference) and wanted do some fun enrichment for the Bears and for me to watch. So IRead more

You won’t see this in the wild

  I snapped this picture of our 4 black bears eating breakfast together. Gus is the one looking up.   In the wild, black bears are solitary. This is definately a rare sight.   Our black bears are all rescues who weren’t able to be released back into the wild. Luckily we have a large enough exhibit for them that they are all able to have their own space. Sometimes they actually like spending time together. Often Gus and YonaRead more

What do the bears eat?

Bear food for one day Here is the Bear food for one day. 12 apples 6 oranges 12 carrots 6 pears 6 cups of nuts 12.5 lbs of chow (missing from pic)   The bears always get apples and oranges. Every other day they get either carrots or cooked sweet potatoes. Their extra fruit/vegetable  (which is pears in this pic) varies each day between pears, avacados, berries, peaches or plums, heads of lettuce, grapes or raisins, and corn on the cob. EachRead more

ANSWERS- Black Bear: True or False

1. When a bear stands up it is going to charge. false- Bears are very curious and are often just checking out the situation 2. All black bears are black. false- Check out Keeper Jill’s post on the different colors black bears can be- here 3. A bear’s sense of smell is better than a dog’s. true- Bears sense of smell is 7 times greater than a bloodhound’s 4. Bears can’t climb trees. false- Black bears are amazing climbers, gettingRead more
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Black Bears: True or False

Thanks to the Appalachian Bear Rescue website I found this true or false quiz. See if you can answer them correctly- I’ll post the answers soon. The Appalachian Bear Rescue Mission Statement is: (a) to rehabilitate orphaned and injured bears for release to the wild; (b) to educate the public about black bears and the regional threats facing them; and (c) to research bear attributes which may help solve other environmental or health-related issues   When a bear stands upRead more