Tag: polar bears

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URSUS MARITIMUS

In case you didn’t know, my second favorite animal is a polar bear. Orca’s first but polar bears right behind. Every time we go to the zoo, I take a polar bear selfie. This is from July 15th when Colton and I went to see the seals. This sleepyhead didn’t wake up while I sat here and stalked it.

In early June, Colton booked himself in to the Behind the Scenes at the zoo to see the seals. I tried to get myself in to see the polar bears that day but it wasn’t running that day or it was booked, I can’t remember. So I started looking for days that I knew I had to be in Winnipeg and low and behold, July 19th had an opening. I immediately registered myself. At that time I figured this was going to be my summer adventure. At the time I didn’t know that I was finally going to fulfill something from my bucket list and finally go whale watching.

So we meet at the Tundra Grill that morning and head over to the smaller building where the penguins were when the Journey to Churchill first opened. It is now office space. So we cut through there which led us outside behind the old bear exhibit. The plan was to spend an hour with Star.

This is Star. Star loves this sort of thing and she knows what’s coming because there are buckets full of romaine lettuce by her enclosure. Yes, romaine lettuce. And carrots. They also feed the bears watermelons and pineapples. Star ate about 8 heads of romaine in the hour that we were together. I lost track of how many carrots she ate.

Star and Blizzard (who died in 2019) came to our zoo in September 2014 at approximately one year of age. Suspected to be orphans after being spotted by a helicopter patrolling for bears near the Hudson’s Bay Coastline, Star and Blizzard were observed alone. Searches were made for their mother but they could not find her. At that time researches deemed Star and Blizzard to young to defend themselves without their mother due to their lack of maternal protection and lack of survival skills.

So, here we are situated in front of Star’s current home. Of course the first thing I want to know about this situation is why Star isn’t in the big exhibit with the big pool and all the other bears and not back here alone. So I asked. Apparently Star has been a part of the big enclosure and while she does okay there, she is not happiest there. Polar Bears are typically solitary animals and while the other bears have adjusted to communal living, Star hasn’t. The main exhibit is home to 9 other bears. Storm being the #1 who keeps harmony over there. Its busy and there are more male bears over there than females. So right now, Star is back here in what they call the Cub Care Centre. Down the way is Aggie, the movie bear from BC. But I’ll talk more about that later.

I also asked if our bears would be used in a breeding program and they will not be. Not at this time and likley never.

So we talk about bears, we ask questions about bears and finally they asked, would you like to interact with the bear. Hell, yes. So we get a target and the instructions about how to use the target. I’m ready cause I’ve done this with a seal already. Now I don’t say anything while we are getting the instructions but my target has a defect. My target end as a plastic end protruding out of it but I figure, they must know, they are the polar bear care professionals. So I approach Star, give her my command and she bites the end of my target. Not once, but three or four times. But this works for me because this means I get to spend more time interacting with her. Finally I tell them what I think the issue is and get a new target. And guess what, Star follows my command and does what she is supposed to do. She put her booper right on the target.

If I was fighting the urge to touch the bear before this whole thing started, I’m really fighting it now. I understand at this point that I risk the chance of never, ever being allowed at the zoo again. But I control myself. In this picture you can see her teeth on the end of my target.

So why is target training important? Well, this helps the trainers get the bear where they need them to be to examine them without having to put them out. So they can check eyes, ears ,etc. It is also used to vaccinate them.

Moving on, she now asks who wants to feed Star? Well that was a really stupid question!

She I get myself a pair of tongs and a piece of romaine and I feed Star. Why I am hanging on to my purse strap I do not know because I am not scared. I think I’m actually vibrating at this point and trying to ground myself. I feed her about 3 or 4 times during my hour with her.

So at this point we are getting close to the one hour mark and this is when I try to get over to Agee. Agee has never been on display at the zoo. Aggie will never be on display at the zoo. Agee is a 26 year old female who lived a majority of her life with a private owner in British Columbia. Her previous owners got Agee as a cub and of course she imprinted on him. Moving to the zoo and never having had contact with other polar bears, Agee will live out her life at the other end of the Cub Care Centre. She is not fond of attention and humans and was off limits to us. I will share with you a story they told us about Agee. A while back the bears were each given a pineapple. Agee was so pleased with hers that she made herself a bed and slept with it. If you want to see Agee, she has stared in movies such as Alaska (1996), The Journey Home (2014) and Operation Alaska (2014).

The trainers start to wrap things up and we are now given our time to pose with Star. The whole time that Star is behind me, she is really sniffing me. Little unnerving cause she’s not being discreet about it at all. Big, snotty inhales. I can only imagine what I smell like to her. Cats, dog, ferret. Like a buffet. Not to mention does days before, one of the seals soaked my shoes with water from their tank.

I highly suggest you check out these Behind the Scenes programs at the zoo. For $100.00 you get to spend an hour in close contact with the animals at the zoo and learn more about them. The money raised for these events is said to go back into their care. The trainers are very friendly and very knowledgeable. I will say, when they open up in the Spring, book right away because they fill up fast. The polar bear BTS only takes 4 people per session.

After I was done I met with Colton again. I told him we didn’t get to see Agee. He told me he did see her. So he took me over to the other side of the exhibit and through the fence we could see her pacing back and forth. I’m not going to give my opinion on this matter.

I am in my glory because the next day, I’m leaving for BC to whale watch.

Next thing to check off my bucket list, Churchill.

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BEHIND THE SCENES – SEALS

In case you didn’t know, the Assiniboine Park Zoo offers a Behind the Scenes program during the summer months. Off the top of my head, you can see seals, polar bears, snow leopards and tigers.

For around $100.00 (this includes an hour BTS and your zoo admission) you can choose to learn more about some of the animals at the zoo. On July 15th, Colton took me to see the seals, which is one of his favorite animals.

We entered into the usually unauthorized door at the Journey to Churchill Building and went upstairs to the area where the zoo employees train, feed and treat the seals. Inside this building, two male seals were waiting for us. This is Emil. His co-performer who we didn’t get a photo with is Gabbers. He is what they consider a dwarf seal because he didn’t develop properly. His flippers are smaller than they should be AND he didn’t develop a mouth full of teeth.

During our hour we asked the seals to perform some tasks for us which included touching his nose to the target, rolling over and splashing us. All with hand signals. We even got to feed them.

When it came to my turn to have Emil roll over, he wouldn’t. After a handful of tries, he finally did and then I got to feed him a fish for his efforts.

During our time inside, the seals did come out of the water and came right up to our feet. We were advised before the event began that if a seal did approach us, we were not permitted to touch it although they may touch us. That didn’t happen.

We were permitted to take photos but only when the trainers okayed it. We didn’t really need to though because one of the zoo employees was taking photos the entire time and then emailed them to us for free. She did a great job and was sure to make sure she got a shot of everyone.

We then moved outside to the top of the Journey to Churchill seal exhibit. This is where you see them swimming around before you go out the sliding doors and just outside the doors. Up there we got to meet Neptune who is considered to be the leader of the 7 male seals at the zoo. I will add that all of these seals are there because they were either injured (Neptune only has one eye) or were unable to care for themselves in the wild and would have otherwise died. 5 of the zoos seals are from British Columbia and two are from Germany.

I have to add that when we got outside, one of the bears was very curious about us being up there. This bear was identified as Willow.

At this point I could have turned my attention to the bears but I knew that I was going to be back here in a few days for the polar bear BTS. So we talked some more about the seal program, whether the zoo would take in anymore seals, which the ladies said they didn’t want to as they felt that the 7 was a good number. It is their opinion that at this time every seal was getting what they needed and there is currently harmony in the tank.

Willow was not giving up though. She kept getting closer and close to us to see what we were doing.

This is a great program. We were told a lot about the zoo, its seal program and we were able to ask a lot of questions. There wasn’t a question that they weren’t able to answer. I highly recommend it and, all of the proceeds go back to the animal program you attend.

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URSUS MARITIMUS

If you have never been to the Journey to Churchill exhibit at the Assiniboia Park Zoo in Winnipeg, I highly recommend it.  I do not condone wild animals being held in captivity and honestly, I avoid these sorts of exhibits at all costs – sometimes we do it for our kids even though we don’t necesarily agree with it.  Regardless, this exhibit and research facility at the zoo has saved countless bears from being euthanized because they have become problem bears.

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This year Colton and I attended on an afternoon when we were in the city and had nothing to do.  We went for two of the exhibits, the bears & seals – they are also there because they have been badly injured in the wild and after rehabilitation would not survive in the wild – and to see the stingray exhibit.  We had the opprotunity to pet stingrays in Minneapolis a few years back but thought we would check this out too.  While the stingrays were interesting, its the bears that keep me going back.

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On our first walk through, no one was swimming but we did come around the corner to one display area to catch the start of a “fight”.

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I was thrilled.  After getting the news about my camera sensor and being upset, I thought, here is the chance to get some great shots AND find out for sure if I can see the damage on my photos.  I took at least forty or fifty pictures.

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New to me, a pool that they have built by this viewing area.  It was quite deep and you couldn’t see the bears bobbing around in the water and it appeared they needed to take quite the leap to get in.  We watched this for about 5 or so minutes while these 3 bears played.  One was more passive and wasn’t really interested in the chase but did get the odd jab in.

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Or maybe he was just a lazy bear.

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After watching the lazy bear drink water and becoming impatient waiting for the other two to get out of the pool, we carried on to the stringrays.

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When we got to the stingray exhibit and I took a quick look at the shots I got I realized that while my camera was being cleaned my shooting mode dial had been changed.  I’ll admit that I am guilty of never double checking BEFORE I start taking photos and I am bad at not taking a test shot.  Well, my camera was set to manual which was perfect for what I was doing with it the night before when I was taking photos of the moon!  Another lesson learned because a full moon is to bright to shoot, you loose the fine details.  My summer photography has been full of lessons.

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Needless to say, back at the hotel, it took me a while to salvage some of the photos, most of which I just converted to black & white to save them.  Thank goodness for shooting in RAW and thank goodness for Photoshop!

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I hope to one day go on the Tundra Buggy – its on my bucket list – and witness these creatures in their natural habitat.  No dirty glass.  And hopefully by then I’ll have learned to always check my camera settings first and remember that a test shot is so important.  I knew this fly by the seat of your pants crap was going to catch up with me one day.