Bears Enjoying the Spring Snow!
Build a Snow Igloo for Napping In.
Posted by Devin Manky May 3, 2012
Grinder and Coola have now been out of their hibernation for nearly a week. They are enjoying themselves and playing in the large mounds of snow left in their hibernation habitat. Sliding, wrestling and digging are just some of their favourite activities.
Last night both bears started digging into one of the large mounds and this morning we found a large snow igloo big enough to hold a grizzly bear inside. Here is Grinder doing a little more work to the interior while Coola watches from above:
And here Coola naps by the entrance while Grinder scopes out the rest of the habitat:
A few more shots of their work:
Both bears are happy to be out of hibernation and the light snowfall that has been falling everyday only seems to spur them on to even more activity. We are still managing their feeds to get their metabolism up to full speed and at the moment their diet consists of lettuce and carrots. Soon we will add in sweet potatoes and finally apples and protein (meat and dried dog kibble) as we get closer to June.
After a hard day of play, the boys have been retiring into their bear hotel each evening to spend the night sleeping on the branch bed they made for hibernation.
Grinder and Coola will be excited to get into their Upper Pond Habitat (part of their large 5 acre summer habitat) where there will be extremely large snow mounds for them to excavate! We are continuing to work our own excavation of that area in the hopes of soon having it ready for Grinder and Coola. Here are a couple shots at our staff hard at work (thanks guys!):
