Jul 16, 2006 9:10 am US/Central
CBS 2 At Brookfield Zoo: Brown Bear
by Susan Carlson
BROOKFIELD, Ill. (CBS) ―
Just how does one train a brown bear? The answer is very, very carefully.
At Brookfield Zoo this week, CBS 2's Susan Carlson met a brown bear named Big Jim.
SC: "Good morning, I'm here with Andre Copeland at Brookfield Zoo, and you are in for a treat, because we have a very special training session going on with a brown bear. Andre, describe what they're doing."
AC: "This is Jim, and Jim is working with a trainer Jeanine, and what they are doing now is some basic training. You see, we installed this window and this training area so that our keepers could work with the bears. For example, Jeanine's asking Jim to open his mouth so she can check his teeth. Now, if you were to come to a zoo probably 20, 30 years ago, this type of thing wouldn't be possible. When we wanted to do any type of checkups on large carnivores, we had to use anesthesia. But we quickly realized just as with people, anesthesia can affect individuals in different ways, so with this type of training, we can get him the benefit of medical procedures and checkups without using anesthesia at all."
SC: "Now he is a brown bear. Describe how they are different from some other types of bears."
AC: "Well, you do have different types of brown bears. For example, this is what you would call an Alaskan brown bear, and you would find them on Admiralty Island. Alaskan brown bears can stand 7 to 8 feet tall and weigh right around 1,000 to 1,200 pounds. Jim himself weighs about 1,100 pounds. That's different than the grizzly bears. Grizzly bears are generally found in the interior. They don't get as large as the Alaskan brown bears or the Kodiak bears because they don't eat fish the same way the Alaskan brown bears do."
SC: "Tell us when people can watch this training session."
AC: "You can come here to Brookfield Zoo every day except Tuesday at 11:30. Our trainers will try to come out here and do a training session for the public so they can see the wonderful things they are capable of doing with these very intelligent animals."
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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