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Photos & Videos

Photos

Bear in a cage.
Bear laying in grass.
Two bears playing in a tub of water.
Two small bears playing in a tub of water.
Bear carrying a salmon in its mouth.
Female grizzlies watch as one digs a den in the yard.
someone squatting in a bear den under the ground.
Bear den in the ground.
Bear coming out of a den.
Mama bear standing next to her cubs.
Mama bear standing next to her cub.
Three bears basking in the sun in the outdoor enclosure.
Brandon Evans Hutzenbiler.
Bear playing.
Bear standing on its hind legs.
A bear sitting on its hind end waving its paw.
A bear sitting on its hind end stretching its back leg with front paws.
Clicker training grizzly bear with honey water
Bear eating inside of watermelon.
Cub bear sitting in water barrel.
Bear walking on grass.
Dodge and Zuri, grizzly bear siblings, playing in the pool.
Bear walking in field.
Close-up of bear face.
Bear chewing on fish in pool.
Bear laying down in grass.
Bears coming out den.
Bear laying in grass.
Bears walking around in field.
John grizzly bear standing and eating guacamole off of enrichment item.
Bear cub laying on floor.
Kio grizzly bear in yard.
Oakley standing on tub to reach enrichment item.
Bear walking around in grass.
Zuri bear lying in yard on her belly.
Oakley standing in den she is digging as Cooke watches.
Grizzly bear cooling down in water.
Bear sitting in pool.
Bear playing with a toy.
Bear Center volunteer Claire giving Willow bear a treat.
Dr. Charles feeding cub.
Three researchers working on a drugged polar bear in a snowy field with a helicopter in the background.
Woman doing a checkup on bear.
Nina Woodford in a grassy field with two bear cubs.
Bear playing with a box.
Bear cub on a log.
Lynn Nelson and student Jen Fortin standing with bear in yard.
A bear cub relaxing in the grass.
Bear cub.
Grizzly is walking on grass.

Videos

Pigs, grizzlies and humans share this one skincare secret!

Researchers have found telltale clues for how to revitalise skin by looking at curious structures known as rete ridges.

Rete ridges are a hard-to-study feature of the skin that could harbour the stem cells needed to allow it to regenerate. There aren’t many animal models available to study them in detail, so these researchers scoured the animal kingdom to find the skin that most resembled humans’. Now they’ve found hints as to how these ridges form, which they hope could one day enable us to reverse ageing in skin.

A Bear’s Nose Knows Happiness

Enrichment can take on many forms and often centers around food items given in novel ways. Another way we enrich our bears is by using scent to engage their olfactory senses.

Tale of Two Bears

Did you know that bears like to wrestle or that they have friends?

Luna and Oakley, two resident bears at WSU’s Bear Center, are not just friends, but best friends.

Polar Bear Energetics

How does the changing sea ice and increased time on land affect polar bears’ energetics? We find out by tracking polar bears and watching their movements with collar cameras.

Grizzly Bear Energetics

Find out how WSU researchers trained grizzly bears to walk on a treadmill so they could measure energy expenditure, and then how the researchers applied that knowledge to understanding the movements of wild bears. The study can be found here.

Winter’s Rest: Grizzly Bear Hibernation at WSU

Find out how and why the grizzly bears at WSU hibernate.

How to Get Blood from a Grizzly Bear and Remain Safe

Drawing blood from captive bears is important in monitoring their health and in providing biological material for numerous research projects. To minimize stress on captive bears, WSU Bear Center personnel demonstrate how they have been able to do this by working with the bears.

Den Digging

This video has no audio

As the days shorten and get colder during the months of September and October, you can tell winter is on the way- and so can the WSU bears. It’s not unusual to see some of our bears, especially those that came to our facility from the Yellowstone Ecosystem, begin to exhibit behaviors indicative of hibernation preparation. Often during this time of the year appetites will dwindle and individuals will gather and drag debris like grass and bark inside their permanent den areas signaling their desire to make a cozy bed. Our more industrious residents will take it upon themselves to start constructing their own den out in the exercise yard.

Seen in the video is Oakley, an 18 year old female, making good progress in late October on a den initially started by two of our adult males about a week prior to hibernation officially beginning. The other adult females appear to be content to watch her work. While it is very impressive to observe the bears dig, ultimately annual hibernation occurs inside their structurally sound and camera-equipped artificial dens, located inside the Bear Center facility.