Two adult brown bears in an outdoor enclosure at a zoo or wildlife sanctuary with patches of snow on the ground, likely spring or early winter. 3:35
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Black bears wake up from winter wanting hugs

At a bear sanctuary, the long winter nap is over. "Did you sleep good?" Tyler asks, and one bear answers with a friendly head-butt. more

It was an odd winter, he says. The temperature kept going up and down and never stayed cold for long. Now it's warming up for real, and the bears have decided they are done sleeping and ready to play. They have been in their dens since about November.

He starts at the little black bears' den and asks if he can come in. A bear blocks the way, so the answer is no. There are three dens here, one for each bear. The bears pulled the hay out of two of them and piled it all into one, because they wanted to spend the winter together.

Two adult brown bears in an outdoor enclosure at a zoo or wildlife sanctuary with patches of snow on the ground, likely spring or early winter. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
At a bear sanctuary, the long winter nap is over.

Two of them come over for hugs. Storm is the one with all the energy, he explains, while the other two are still a little sleepy. Then one of them goes after his hat. "You want my hat, don't you?" he says. "No."

Outside, Storm is going full speed. Soon a bear has hold of his leg. "Let go of my leg," he says, and then he hands out a job. "Go get your sister and brother."

A black bear climbs a wooden structure in an outdoor enclosure under a blue sky. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Outside the dens, at least one black bear is fully up and ready to play.

Next comes the brown bears' den. He moved the two brown bears out first, so it's safe to step inside. They like to sleep together, in a den about 4 feet by 8 feet. It's still fairly clean, since bears barely use the bathroom all winter.

You might guess they wake up starving. They don't, he says, pausing to tell one bear, "No, don't eat me." Their bodies still run on fat stored up for winter, just as they would in the wild, where there's little to eat this time of year. Their gut is slow to start back up, so the bears get a high-fiber, vegetable-style diet, close to what wild bears would find.

He loves the work and is honest about it. Winters can get a little boring, but the quiet is also a break from planning special diets, keeping the bears busy and all the cleaning up. Bears, he says, are some of the quirkiest and funniest animals he has ever seen.

His parting advice is plain. "Don't mess with wild bears." He says it while a bear wraps him in a hug, and his only reply is "Hi, baby."