Somethin's Bruin...

Sara, one of the two adult cinnamon colored bears at the center in 1997. (Photo courtesy of ABR)

I can't help but chuckle while pouring through old photographs Dana Dodd sends me. As most of you know, we are trying to document the early history of ABR and as usual, it always brings back wonderful memories to see the old images we captured when barely anyone even knew the center existed. We were learning as fast as we were growing and given the size and popularity of the center today, it's no wonder they are viewed as one of the premier bear facilities in the world. Some of these old photos also make me realize how impressionable a bear can be, and if anything, it stresses the importance of the hands-off policy the facility incorporates. Dakota and Sara gave me one such lesson into a bear's often-complex mind.

First off Dakota and Sara were red (cinnamon colored), even though they were "black" bears. Many don't realize black bears come in all sorts of different colors. It's probably because on the east coast, almost all black bears are black, save for a few that bare small white chest blazes. Move further west however, and their hair color changes, often dramatically. It must go with the more "free-thinking" attitude out there. Anyway, color variations among black bears are spectacular ranging from black to cinnamon to brown to blonde. There's even a white color-phase (not albino) on Kermode Island in British Columbia and a blue color-phase (called Glacier bears) in Southeast Alaska.

Dakota, began to shed his thick cinnamon winter-coat in favor of

a lighter, more tolerable summer-coat. (Photo courtesy of ABR)

As stated earlier, Dakota and Sara were cinnamon bears. They may be the only "non-black" black bears the center ever receives. That is of course, until the Rocky Mountain Bear Rescue opens (hint, hint). As you could imagine, Dakota and Sara were not from Tennessee, nor were they even from the Eastern U.S. They were casualties from an often-illegal bear trade, hence, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confiscated them and prosecuted the perpetrators. In the process of finding a permanent home for the bears they asked a favor of us, to give them temporary housing until all the paperwork was settled.

Needless to say, Dakota and Sara were habituated, raised as cubs not to be bears but to be pets. Though they were still young, they both could be classified as adults having been raised in captivity for a number of years. They were both remarkably beautiful yet painfully pitiful. They revealed their pitiable nature a few days later after releasing them on their own into the bear center's large enclosure.

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I had walked down to the enclosure a few minutes earlier and had heard the bears in distress. It wasn't a painful distress mind you, but rather the vocalization that signifies mental distress. Both bears were huffing and whoofing, making it quite clear that an intruder had invaded their space.

They were nervously pacing back and forth.

Knowing it wasn't my presence that disturbed them, I peered through the blinds to see what was causing them anguish.

It must have been a frightful creature, for Dakota, the larger male, would rise on his hind legs and then briskly come down and swat the ground. This, of course, was an effort to keep the invader at bay.  A natural display of aggression, in hopes of pre-empting an altercation by scaring away the competitor before a physical confrontation begins.

I still could not see the threat. Given the agitated nature of the two adult bears, for even Sara continued to pace, I too began to worry.

Had another bear entered the enclosure? After all, we were designed to keep bears in, not out. Did Sara come into heat and draw in a larger male from the area? Was there going to be an all-out bear war within the enclosure? ...a sometimes fatal encountered between two rival males over a lone female. And if so, what was I going to do about it? Heck...what could I do about it??

I peered ever-more intently.

Then I saw him.

The intruder.

He was well developed.

A noble suitor.

Probably three or four times the age of Dakota.

He was stealthy, for he blended in perfectly with the surroundings.

If he couldn't put up much offense, he was guaranteed to offer a formidable defense.

His shell would demand it.

(Hear the record being ripped off the turntable!)

His shell???

Yep...you heard me right.

His shell...all 7-8 inches of it.

The intruder was...

...a turtle.

An eastern box turtle to be exact.

With the combined ferocity of a pillow and the blinding speed of...of well, a turtle!

Yet, Dakota and Sara were terrified. After an extended display of huffs and bluff charges, Dakota finally worked up enough courage to approach the beast.

Albeit when he finally did work up the courage, he snuck up on his belly, tapped the turtle on his shell, and went tearing back into the brush, hind end going faster than front end....obviously fearing Donatello from the teenage mutant ninja turtles was about to release his fury.

It was painfully sad.

And I felt guilty laughing at the spectacle.

Here were two beautiful strong healthy bear specimens...that didn't know they were bears. How could they? They were raised by humans.

They were extremely intelligent so they probably assumed they were as helpless as a naked human child in the woods. And at that point they were. When bears are around humans for too long they may begin to think they're human. And given their faculties, primarily their strength and agility, they unfortunately become dangerous, not just to humans but to themselves.

This is why when wild bears become habituated, they no longer act like a bears, hence they live much shorter and much more stressful lives than their wild counterparts.

Needless to say, Dakota and Sara survived the brutal attack that day. The two were placed in a sanctuary, which was best for them, but unfortunately they never could live a life wild and free. Given the amount of free ranging turtles there are in the wild, I like to think they were both OK with that decision.