Live At The Cleveland Zoo-Grizzly Bears

How about some grizzly bears for today's animal pictures? These are from my trip to the Cleveland MetroParks Zoo last month, as you probably know by now. I'm slowly working my way around the entire zoo in no particular order, and tonight I've gotten to the grizzly bears. These guys were huge! That's all I can say about them. They were big. I'd hate to run into one of these fellows in the wild. In their pen, they were cute and cuddly as could be, looking like big brown teddy bears, but I'm sure they are nothing like that in the wild. Just look at those claws. Imagine what they could do to you, to say nothing of the teeth these guys have.



I don't know exactly what the problem was, but both of the grizzly bears in the habitat I saw had some fur problem. Maybe it's mange or something, but they were missing large patches of fur, and the fur they had left looked a little ratty. I hope they're getting some treatment for whatever the problem is.

Live At The Cleveland Zoo-Polar Bears

If I'd ever seen polar bears before this trip to the Cleveland MetroParks Zoo, I don't remember it. These big white bears were pretty impressive, even if they didn't do much. The one above pretty much just laid there the whole time, watching the people watch him and trying not to nod off. The other one paced back and forth, occasionally making an odd face like the one I captured below.


As I mentioned, one of the bears spent the whole time I watched him people-watching. So I figured it only made sense to show you the people he was watching.

Live At The Cleveland Zoo-Sloth Bears

We switch gears a little here, going from White Christmas to Malayan Sun Bears. Well, at least I think they are sun bears. They only sorta match the description given at the Cleveland MetroParks Zoo webpage, but that's where I saw them and that's the closest thing I could find to what I saw. The description includes the band of light fur under the neck, but it says short hair. Does this guy look short-haired to you? I didn't think so. Wait, I'm wrong. This is a sloth bear. They share the neck band, but are long-haired. Sorry about the confusion. I just can't seem to get away from the sloths.

I had only taken a few shots when suddenly a fight broke out! I think one of the bears was getting a little frisky, and the other bear in the enclosure wasn't having any of it. I think it's pictures like this that make Stephen Colbert so deathly afraid of bears. If I hadn't been on the other side of a wall and a moat, I would have been scared too. But once she put her teeth away for the evening, she headed off into her bear house, and poor Mr. Bear was left outside to contemplate possible escape using his giant claws.

Lions And Tigers And Bears

Saturday in Cleveland, and the weather is supposed to be bad. It wasn't raining when I left the hotel this morning, but the weather forecast was threatening. So I had to find some place to go that didn't leave me out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a downpour. So I decided to visit the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. I haven't been to a real zoo in about four years, so it was quite the experience. I've got a much better camera now than I had then, and I put a big long lens on the end of it. I got some really great pictures and had a lot of fun. Once I get back to Florida, I'll go through them and post some more good ones, but for now you get one lion, one tiger and one bear. Enjoy!