Repairs and upgrades make old things new again. That’s true at the WSU Bear Center as well as anywhere else. And the climbing structure at the center needed a little upgrade. So late last month, staff and volunteers at the center spent an afternoon cleaning up the exercise yard and doing small repairs on the […]
The initiative to burrow is strong in bears. The cubs at the WSU Bear Research, Education, and Conservation Center are no different, having recently dug out a significant den in the exercise yard for the first time. Grizzlies like the cubs naturally dig to create dens to prepare for hibernation. It’s a little early, but […]
It’s all about loving animals and wanting to make sure they’re properly cared for. That’s what drives WSU senior Amber Stotts in her career goal of working at a zoo or animal sanctuary. “I’ve always wanted to work with animals,” said Stotts, who is minoring in zoology and majoring in anthropology. The Manhattan, Kansas native […]
New CAHNRS Dean André Wright came face to face with the grizzlies of the WSU Bear Center in an informational visit Monday, July 30. Grizzlies at Washington State University are partners in research in important experiments affecting the fate of wild grizzly and polar bears, as well as science that could revolutionize how we solve […]
Our bears at the WSU Bear Center are here to advance knowledge of grizzly bears as a whole, not just for WSU research. Along those lines, Ryan Long, an assistant professor at the University of Idaho, and Savannah Rogers, a UI graduate student, are working on a project with WSU’s Charlie Robbins. Long’s research focuses […]
At the WSU Bear Research, Education, and Conservation Center, we have an enrichment program aimed at keeping our bears physically healthy and mentally stimulated. Every month, we’ll showcase the new or different activities and physical…
When it comes to creating puzzles for bears to solve, food is an excellent motivator. That’s the main idea behind the WSU Bear Center’s enrichment program. “We’re getting more and more complex, adding pulleys and multiple-action solutions,” said Center manager Brandon Hutzenbiler. “But the simplest enrichment, hiding food in the exercise yard, is really the […]
If bears are fed during hibernation, they wake up. But not completely. That’s the preliminary finding from a research study conducted this winter at the WSU Bear Research, Education, and Conservation Center, where scientists fed seven bears glucose every day for 10 days. Four WSU bears were not fed during hibernation, serving as the control […]
At the Bear Center, they’re still called ‘the cubs’. But physiologically, they’re more like teenagers or young adults. The four youngest grizzly bears at the WSU Bear Research, Education, and Conservation Center are now three and a half years old. They were born at the Center in 2015, and many cute photos were taken. But […]
If you love wildlife, working for Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game is basically the ultimate job. “As a research biologist, I worked with moose, river otters, wolverines, wolves, brown bears, black bears, mountain goats, and probably a few others I’m forgetting,” said Tony Carnahan, currently a Ph.D. student at WSU. One of his jobs […]
