Babysitting a bear in Life

I got a call Thursday asking me to volunteer at the zoo to watch the new Andean (Spectacled) Bear, Manny. I explained that I had removed myself from training last year for personal reasons, so I didn't complete the training. She said I had completed enough for this, if I was willing to do it. I jumped at the chance. The two Andean bears that they got came from Chicago and are part of the re-population project. We have a small zoo, but it's won lots of awards for the work on endangered/threatened species. It's the zoo I grew uip visiting and it has grown and changed so much. Concrete cages are gone, and real-life exhibits are there. Because the bear is new they have volunteers watching him to make sure he doesn't do something to hurt himself or try to climb the fence. He's an old guy, 27 years old, and he has some arthritis in his back legs. I really don't think he'll be climbing any time soon. (He couldn't even get in the hammock. He couldn't get his back leg to do what it was supposed to. ) He played in the water like a kid, though. I was there about 2 1/2 hours and he came right up to the fence several times. Of course I never thought to take a picture then, I was took busy admiring him and talking to him. So, the pictures aren't great, but he was awesome. He literally rolled around in the water splashing his paws. At one point he was sitting right in front of me, watching me and out popped a ball of food. I don't know where he had it hidden, but it was similar to the cubes that we used to put in the cows' food. I know that's not what it was, but it was what it reminded me of. About 15 pieces all stuck together until they popped up, then they started floating around and he literally played with them, then he would snatch it up to eat. I found out that this was his first time to get to explore his new home and I really felt blessed to get to see his excitement and joy. He was born in captivity and has been bred several times to try and build the species back (the keeper knew some of it, but not all, he knows that several cubs came off Manny, and that the goal was for a few of them to be released to wild, but he didn't know if that had happened. I know from the training that is the goal of most of the re-population program, to build a strong population first, then start releasing to the wild. After an hour or so it started to rain pretty heavily, so the keeper opened his den back up. He instantly went in. He stuck his head out and sniffed a time or two, but never came back out. Since he was neck deep in water for most of the time he was out, I know the water didn't bother him, but I would imagine he felt a little "safer" in his den.
It was a really cool experience and reinforced that I most definitely want to finish the training this time. This is the kind of thing I want to do with the volunteering, spending time with the animals. Here's some pictures and one (or two - can's seem to post a video just once, :( ) video of the day.

And the video. There was a display of macaws right behind me. They were LOUD! lol Also, I didn't get a picture or video of it, but the wall behind the hammock (where his den is) has a waterfall that turns on for 30 or so minutes at a time. Very cool and he got very excited when it did. <object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="//

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