Daily Ramblings

Make up for May 22 573 words

Bailey got to be a "Keeper Kid" at the Bear and Wolf Center. Man, was that super cool!!! They rotate the bear population into the enclosure every two hours or so. In the morning, between rotations, the Keeper Kids get to go into the enclosure to hide food for the bears. (Of course the bears are not IN the enclosure, which is what one mom asked!!! I said, no, that would change things from HIDING lunch to BECOMING lunch!!!) Anyway....Bailey got to do this program, and since the weather was so nasty, she was the ONLY one. It was so awesome, she got one-on-one time with the naturalist and the keeper. Then, after she was done, they released the bears, and she got to see them searching and finding the food she left for them. It was SO cool!!! Another really neat (and rather out of the ordinary) thing occurred at the Bear and Wolf Center that day. There was a delivery into the wolves' enclosure of live fish into their pond. It took probably 45 minutes to stock their pond. This only occurs a few times a summer, so it is very much NOT natural behavior for the wolves.....which means they weren't' expecting the people to feed them or anything. By doing this, the center ensures that both the bears and wolves really cultivate "natural" habits as if they were in the wild. When we left, the alpha male Hayden was getting ready to catch his fresh fish out of the pond. It was pretty amazing.