Hi everyone, No set date yet, but looks like Cinder may join Koa in a week or so. We are very excited for her arrival and for Koa to have a buddy. He is very good at entertaining himself as you will see from the new videos, but assuming they merge together he will be a happy bear to have someone to wrestle and play with beside the apples & logs and poles. Even though Cinder is a yearling, there shouldn’t be any problem merging them after a while. We have merged yearlings and cubs of the year and even two-year olds. It’s really up to the two of them. Cinder will stay in the front of the enclosure & Koa in back and they will tell us when they are ready to open the gate between them. Then it will definitely be up to them when or if they merge and begin playing and being together. We are expecting that to happen, but also aware it’s their choice. The enclosure is large enough they can both be in it and maintain their own areas if they want. However, from past experience we just don’t see that happening. Koa is out more each day, putting on weight, and playing a lot. The other day a very nice person dropped off some huge sunflowers and he ripped into those seeds to get them out. Finally, in frustration he walked away and came back 3 times. The last time he turned the sunflower upside down, picked it up by the stalk and ran back to his den under the upside down swim tub. I think he decided he needed time to really work on it and didn’t like being out in the open. Amy says we might need to call the program Hoarders to help him. As bears do he has begun dragging anything and everything in & around his den. Before Cinder arrives, we’ll have to roust him out for an hour or two and clean it up, change the hay (and then he can do it all again). She may or may not den with him, but if they want to den together when the time comes, there won’t be much room if he keeps this up. The Facebook team will put the new videos on Facebook and we will load them on the website as well. We will also have them on our Razoo Giving Tuesday page for 12/2/14. It has been a long process learning the necessary steps to get the video from our monitoring system to a format you can see and that YouTube will accept, and edit them. FINALLY, I have each step in the process documented so it’s going smoothly, but is time-consuming. All at the same time I’m watching the conversion format on the monitor system, new videos to sort the good & bad, the cameras monitoring Koa during the day, editing completed video on my desktop, and finally uploading them to YouTube. Talk about multi-tasking….or maybe it should be called going crazy. I’m also finally getting the editing process down and combining some of the short clips into one video. Academy Awards here we come! Don’t forget to join us for Giving Tuesday on 12/2/14. We still need to wrap up 2014 expenses and prepare for 2015 Second Chance at Freedom. There is a lot to get done with enclosures and bear releases come spring and prepare for the 12th Western Black Bear Workshop in May. IBBR has been asked to do a presentation and take part in a round table discussion on bear rehab. We are so excited to continue spreading information and knowledge about bear rehab to give more bears a Second Chance at Freedom. Looks like 2015 is going to be a busy and productive year and it’s thanks to all of you for making it possible. Sally Maughan~ New Videos: Uploaded One wired up bear Soccer or basketball Koa the soccer bear Koa chasing apples at dusk Koa just being a bear Koa versus the stump Koa plunges into the swim tub Koa playing ball & doing somersaults *link to all above videos*-https://youtube/playlist?list=UU6nUFbRW2rSc8SmJzZeAa8A
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 14:32:23 +0000