Charmed by black bears

by Ted Oakes for Bear country Minnesota, 1 March 2007

When programme maker Ted Oakes went to the Northwoods of Minnesota to film black bears, he had no idea that he would have such an intimate encounter.

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Ted Oakes is impressed when he meets a black bear and her cubs close-up.

Ted filmed the bears with the help of biologist Dr Lynn Rogers. As black bears spend most of their time deep in the forests, researchers have only been able to study them by radio tracking their movements. Lynn did this for 25 years before he decided to take a different approach. He learned how to gain the bears' trust so that they allowed him to follow them. The bears have come to ignore Lynn's presence and he has been able to study their natural behaviour.

The researchers working with Lynn follow a strict protocol when following the study bears in Minnesota. They can feed a bear a small amount of natural food when they meet it. They have to greet the bear and it has to know who they are. The bear will then often accept their presence for most of the day.

The bears studied by Dr Lynn Rogers have become habituated to him and his researchers. But when programme maker Chadden Hunter was filming in Canada's far north he had a close encounter with a carnivore that may never have seen humans before. Find out what happened when Chadden was watched by a wolf.