Sadie and the boys
24 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Russia's Grizzly Coast Tags: bears
I got to walk the Northern Trail yesterday under balmy conditions: my head comfortably bare, the sunshine slipping flirtatiously in and out from behind its cover of cloud. But I never expected to see the bears up and about. They spend most of the winter asleep in a furry pile, mimicking the deeper dormancy they’d experience in the wild. And year-round, they’re usually napping at noon. But heading into Grizzly Coat around 12:15, I was delighted to see Haines and Kenai wrassling in the pool, just like the old days. That’s usually the best thing you see at the bear exhibit, but yesterday it got even better.
Sadie, our lone girl bear, likes to stay dry; I’ve seen her in the pool just twice, on beastly hot summer days. Various outdated human female stereotypes apply to her: She’s shy and retiring and doesn’t like to roughhouse; unlike the boys, she doesn’t like to step on the scale, even though she weighed in last time at a svelte 530 pounds, or 300 pounds lighter than Haines. Here she’s pondering a dip, or just hoping Kenai chases a fish her way so she can catch it from land (fellow volunteers tell me this has happened before). Some human boys came by and started egging her on — “Go on, go in!” — but to no avail.
She didn’t obey them, but she bonded with them anyway. The fascination seemed mutual. When I told them she was a girl bear, one of the boys stroked the glass that divided him from her fur and murmured, “Good girl.”
Lots of human-to-human bonding happens at the bear exhibit, too. Yesterday I got to talking with Jen, a visitor from Rhode Island who twice spoke the zoo-related words that warm volunteers’ hearts: “You have such a beautiful facility here!” Not only was she in town applying for an education job, but she had worked at the Alaska Sealife Center several years ago when our Grizzly Coast sea otter Capers was staying there as a newly rescued pup. I wished her luck in getting the job and hoped that if she did, she would join the volunteer ranks on weekends. There’s always room for another enthusiast.
