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Oct 12, 2008 11:23 pm US/Central
Finding Minnesota: Black Bears Come To 'U Of M'
(WCCO)
It is a rare and wild treat to come close enough to appreciate the true beauty of a black bear. It's an encounter very few of us will ever come to appreciate.
Long misunderstood as a dangerous and vicious beast of our north woods, there's now a photographic exhibit at the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum of Natural History that will change that.
"It's just this great story about the life of black bears," said the museum's Don Luce.
For nearly 40 years, photographer and wildlife researcher Lynn Rogers has studied black bears in northern Minnesota. Initially, all of his research was performed from a distance.
"He was inspired by the work of Jane Goodall," said Luce.
Goodall is the biologist who gave us our first up-close look at the lives of chimpanzees. Through patience and persistence, Goodall took scientific observation to a whole new level by living with the chimps.
In the 1980s Rogers applied Goodall's practice of what's called, "Neutral Habituation," and slowly let the wild black bears grow accustomed to him near his Ely research station.
"He's just there, watching what they're doing, trying to watch what they're eating, recording what they're eating," said Luce.
His observations stripped away many of the long held myths about black bears. Besides a diet of berries, Rogers learned that bears have a fondness for insects such as the destructive tent caterpillars.
But it's his color images that are so special and moving. There are beautiful photographs showing mothers caring for cubs and 800-pound giants jumping with ease across a creek.
Because Rogers has spent so much time up close and personal with bears, he's the only researcher to have recorded their language.
The exhibit has an interactive display that plays eight distinct sounds of bears, including one sound he calls "gargling" that almost sounds like a horse.
Curt Hadland worked with Rogers while setting up an exhibit at the Science Museum. Hadland said, "I think he's one of the few that's actually done this kind of research where you get into the intimate details of the bear's daily life."
Hadland went on to say that the sounds that Rogers captured, everything from blowing noises and tongue clacking, grunting, huffing and moaning, are consistent from den to den. Each represents a bears' most basic behavior.
The man who walks and talks with bears will continue peering into their lives at his research station near Ely.
And in so doing, Lynn Rogers will provide all of us with his unique perspective on these incredible creatures, one photograph at a time.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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