Minnesota Black Bears
Monday, August 31st, 2009
Made a trip to the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary in Orr, MN to photograph black bears last week. This was a great experience. There is nothing like having three to five hundred pound bears walking around you within arms length. Some will even sneak up on you and nuzzle you much like a dog. Now they really don’t want to be petted they are simply curious and looking to see if you have food. I never had a bear become aggressive to me but they do grumble between themselves and a female who has cubs will certainly run another bear off if they get to close to the cubs.
If you ever have the opportunity to visit I would suggest you do. The Sanctuary is about 4 hours or so north of Minneapolis and is a very small town, population listed on the sign was 296. Pelican Lake is the larger lake in town and is suppose to have a number of white pelicans on it. I did not see any but it may have been too late in the year.