Bear News – AUGUST 2025

August news: Transitioning into Hyperphagia

Bear weights: Lucky- 421, Holly 289, Tasha 342

We recently switched our bears from their maintenance bear kibble to Bear Chow Plus.

It has more nutrients and will gently enhance their weight increase. They will of course continue to get fresh fruits, vegetables and their Amazon Wishlist treats of nuts, cherries, apricots and cranberries.

Hyperphagia is stage 4 of the annual activity cycle: Stage 4—Hyperphagia is a period of excessive eating and drinking to fatten for hibernation. Black bears with unlimited food and water ate 15,000 to 20,000 kcal per day. https://bear.org/bear-facts/5-stages-of-activity-and-hibernation/

During hyperphagia we increase calories to 6000-7000 daily. Our bears eat 8 times a day and get high value calories in the spreads during the day in the viewing area. Wild bears eat as the opportunity arises and gorge so no other bear gets their cache of food.

Their daily intake of beaked hazelnuts, chokecherries, pincherries, rose hips, red-osier dogwood berries, raspberries and sarsaparilla are high in carbs but the volumes of beaked hazelnuts provide needed fat for the bears. This is all part of a wild black bear diet. The Bear Center mimics by giving pecans, brazil nuts and hazelnuts. They also have the same wild foods growing in the enclosure.

Our Ambassador bears have been very ambitious this year. Play was very much a part of their enrichment. New enrichment tools were added so our bears will continue to be stimulated with exposures to new problem solving tasks. Their reward is a variety of dry fruits and nuts, which you provide for them through our Amazon Wishlist.

I also wanted to mention the target training that our bears are learning to do specific behaviors for their annual check-ups. Here are two behaviors we are currently working on.

Macy has worked with Lucky on presenting his paw on command. This is a “captured behavior” He picked this up very fast.

I have been working with Tasha to open her mouth, this is a targeted behavior. I unfortunately had a two and a half week absence and didn’t work with her. We started over and she is doing well. At this time in our target training with the bears we have each chosen an objective in which to work with the bears. These are specific behaviors we want for our vet checks.

I will begin working with Holly on positioning her backside to the fence soon. This will be my biggest challenge of the season. It has been a learning experience for all of us.

If you’d like to do something special for our bears please check out our Amazon wishlist:https://bear.org/support-us/amazon-wishlist-2/

Thank-you for all you do for our bear.

Sharon Herrell, Sr. Bear Keeper