Chico enjoyed me keeping
the mosquitoes off
her face.












Biscuit and I now swim
together-something I
started with Chico as
this photo shows.










Biscuit, Maureen and I
are very much companions
but we still deliberately
do not touch her.

(Click on any Image to see a higher resolution version)

While working on our annual report for 2001 I wrote about a couple things that happened which I had not found time to write while we were in Kamchatka. I have illustrated them from our slide files - some from previous years and some from this season.

Perhaps the most interesting time I had with Biscuit this summer is something I can only speculate about now because I let the moment pass without seeing where it would lead. At the time I had not yet accepted that Chico wasn't going to show up this season. I wanted to continue our relationship with somebody. My objective was to deliberately promote and maintain a close friendship instead of letting our orphaned bears become distant as time passed. When Chico failed to return to the valley this year I had to switch bears in mid-stream. I had to put more emphasis on working with Biscuit and Brandy if I was to find out where all this would lead.

Brandy had new cubs and they were very shy of us. It took weeks for Brandy to convince them that we were not dangerous. The fear they showed might have been interpreted as a natural fear all bears have of man, but not all the new cubs we met behaved that way. Some were relaxed from the first meeting. It took until August before Brandy's two cubs trusted their mother's judgement and began to relax in our presence. Once this happened, Brandy would leave them with us to babysit as she had done with her previous batch of cubs.

Up to this point I had never deliberately touched Biscuit as I did Chico, the reason being that I wanted to compare the difference between the two of them that might show up because of the contrasting set of guidelines of accepted behavior towards me. Last year, I thought I could detect some envy on Biscuit's part when she observed all the things I did with Chico and did not do with her like rough-housing together and locking my fingers with Chico's claws in a palm-to-palm salute when we met.

One day this year I decided to see what would happen if I did touch Biscuit. She was lying in a depression with all four feet tucked under her so mosquitoes could not bite the soles of her feet. It was warm on the hillside. Still asleep, she began to spread out a bit to cool off, letting one hind foot slip over the edge of the dug-out depression. It hung down near to where I was sitting below her. Before long there were several mosquitoes biting along the edge of the pad and I could see by the way her toes flexed and her foot twitched that they were aggravating her even in her sleep. I decided to brush them off as I did with Chico. (Chico would sleep beside me so I could keep them off her nose and eyes).

I ran my fingers along the big hind pad. It was a mistake. I should have wakened her, given some warning of what I was doing. She took a huge sucking breath and sat up very quickly which put her towering above me in a very intimidating posture. It happened so fast and with such turmoil it frightened me. I managed to stay put, even when she let out a long growl while staring at me. I said something like " For gosh sakes Biscuit, cool it". Suddenly, with a big sigh, she sagged back to exactly the same position she had been in before the interruption, with the same foot hanging down, nose propped up by a front paw. Now what was she doing? I decided to slowly reach up as though I was going to touch her foot again. Even though she stayed very still and her eyes were almost closed, I could see one eye was following my hand, as she watched it through her thick eyelashes. To make sure she understood I was suggesting a repeat performance, I took my hand back and repeated the movement, this time brushing my hand through the dry grass towards her foot. Still she did not move.

After what had seemed to be such a clear warning I didn't have the nerve to actually touch her again. There was a chance she was testing me to see if I understood that she didn't like what I had done and was going to make it very clear the next time. Or perhaps she had only been caught by surprise and was hoping I would touch her again so she could show me she had only over-reacted and actually was looking forward to taking Chico's place at a higher level of friendship. I decided not to explore any further and just sat with her for a while before continuing on my way to spend time with Brandy and her cubs.

I had walked about 200 meters when I heard Biscuit running hard to catch up. It was a good opportunity to observe what there was about the way she ran that told me she was not upset with me. Her ears were back, which is also the way angry, charging bears come at you. I decided what gave her good mood away was how she swung her head from side to side as she ran, with her nose tracing a kind of figure of eight. There was something about that movement that expressed joy.

Biscuit stayed with me all morning, even coming into the same basin where Brandy's scent was full in our faces. I could not smell her but it was obvious Biscuit could. When I went to where Brandy was nursing her cubs, Biscuit stayed at the same distance they must previously have worked out. Then she joined me again when I returned. We crossed to the north side of the valley together, but I kept my hands to myself.

-Charlie