[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to the Bear Den. Listeners may have heard my previous episode talking about the book Bearless Story, a story about a polar bear's recovery from life as a circus act, and its author, Elsa Poulson, who was renowned for her work with bears and co founded the Bear Care Group. It was during the pandemic years when I was stuck at home that I came across the Bear Care Group advertising for an opportunity to help with their social media channels. The Bear Care Group is all about sharing information, getting international bear carers together through workshops and conferences to share latest practices, research and learnings, among other things. I jumped at the chance and was taken on board and from there on in I've helped with the social media channels and the organization of conferences and workshops and joined the board of directors, something I still feel very lucky about.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: To be a part of.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: And, you know, I just like to help do my bit. Today's guest in the first of a two part chat is Jay Pratt.
And as you'll hear, he has worked extensively not just with bears, but many animals over a 30 year career. And among other things, he is the president of the Bearcare Group. In this first part we talk about Jay's background and how he got into animal care and his commitment to making a difference for animals and people through advocacy, rescue efforts and expert testimony in federal court. We hear about his work with all eight extant bear species, including pandas at Suatlanta and and in China.
And also the challenges of being a zoo director, with examples that I think people will actually weirdly recognize and empathize with, as well as the importance of positive reinforcement training in animal care, with Jay sharing examples of successful training with bears and other animals. We also explore the role of zoos and sanctuaries in conservation, with Jay emphasizing the need for reputable facilities to lead by example and educate the public about wildlife and stewardship.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: I mean, that's before we even get.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: To talking about the Bearcare Group.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: So we cover a lot.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: So, without further ado, there is a place in the remote northwoods of Minnesota, North America. It's located near the town of orr. Population approximately 300.
Outside of this town is an area where normal rules are put to one side. It's a place where humans and wildlife meet. It's a special place, wholly unique and not without its controversies. This is the Vince Schutte Wildlife Sanctuary, run by the American Bear Association. ABA for short.
The ABA is dedicated to promoting a better understanding of black bears and all wildlife through education, observation and experience.
I'm your host Philip Stubley, and welcome to the Bear Den.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Welcome, Jay. It's a great pleasure to have you here. Would you care to introduce yourself and just kind of tell us where you're speaking to us from?
[00:02:42] Speaker C: Hi, I'm Jay Pratt. I am currently now the founder and owner of Behavioral and Environmental Solutions, an LLC that is based here in central Illinois, where I live with my husband and our family of rescued dogs and cats.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Oh, awesome. And I know that we've got a lot to cover, so I figured we'd start talking a bit about yourself, some kind of career highlights, and then we'll move on to stuff like about the Bear Care Group and Elsa. How does that sound?
[00:03:07] Speaker C: Excellent. Sounds great.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: You've worn many hats in your career. Like, I know you've been an animal keeper, zoo director, president of the Bear Care Group, expert witness consultant.
[00:03:19] Speaker C: All of those things are true.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: And I mean, is this a part of, what, some grand design or just kind of. You made it all up as you were going along?
[00:03:27] Speaker C: Yes.
So it's funny because I'm Canadian. I was born and raised in a very tiny little town in Southern Alberta. Fort McLeod.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I'm aware of it.
[00:03:39] Speaker C: I. I always.
You're aware of Fort McLeod? I'm impressed. Well, I'm straight south of Calgary, just above the American border.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Well, I. This is a bit off topic, but way back when, I had a working holiday visa in Canada, and I'd spent a ski season in Whistler and then wanted to do something else, so I was looking for places, and then I picked Alberta, and I ended up working at. Did a summer season at Waterdon Lakes national park right down on the border.
[00:04:06] Speaker C: Which rock? And you can hit Waterton park from where I grew up. Yeah.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Yeah, I loved it there. And that's kind of where I actually, you know, got exposed to seeing a lot of bears out and about, which kind of started the path I'm on a bit. But.
[00:04:19] Speaker C: Yeah. Excellent. Well, my path, I had no clue.
I. I loved. For whatever reason, there's. There's the term biophilia. Like, there's people that just sort of innately, you know, bonded to nature for some reason. And even as a little kid, like, I just. I wanted to watch National Geographic. I was out poking along, like, you know, in the river. If we went to the beach somewhere. I was playing in the tidal pools and looking for what was living there. And I was just. I was always fascinated by it. But, you know, when you're in rural southern Alberta, you are either a farmer or a Veterinarian if you're going to work with animals. And so it wasn't really a career that I'd kind of thought of. We'd been to the Calgary Zoo once growing up. It was a couple hours away.
Um, I didn't remember it because I was like, you know, much younger. So it wasn't. Those weren't careers that had entered on my radar. And so I, you know, and I was one of the, I earned a lot of the awards for, you know, intellectual accomplishment coming out of high school and whatever else. And so when you're a high achiever, you gotta be a doctor or a lawyer or something. And so I thought I would be, I would go into an environmental law because I had no idea what it was, but I'm like, all right, I'll be a lawyer and keep my family happy. And maybe it has something to do with animals in the environment. I don't know. Went up to Edmonton, Alberta and through a chain of just random events, I ended up volunteering and then very quickly working at. It was a very much a roadside facility. It was a game farm. I didn't know any better at the time, but it had a ton of different big cat species, including more cheetahs than anyone in North America had at the time.
And the, the clouds could have opened up. There could have been a choir of angels. This is what I was supposed to do.
So I changed my first degree to zoology and behavioral psychology, focused on the science of learning and then just kind of went through that and I, through my career, I was, you know, I was an animal caregiver, a zookeeper. I grew up watching when the, the first movie channel that came out was called Super Channel. And there was one movie I lived for watching when I was young and it was called the Beastmaster. And it was Mark Singer running around in a little loincloth like Conan, except he had animal friends that helped him save the PR princess or whatever else. And a. It would have been great to be him, but barring that, I'm like, I want to make movies with animals. That sounds so cool. I did try that for a very short stint and realized that wasn't what I wanted. Like it wasn't long term care, it wasn't worried or focused on their welfare. That's where I started really realizing that in my heart, like what I wanted to do was help animals, help people with animals long term. And so then that sort of started shaping things and, and while there was never intent, like, oh, this is what I'm going to do. It was always, I would learn as much as I could, you know, finish my degree, take some classes, get some certifications and realize like, I was really kind of doing as much as I could at a specific level, like at a keeper and then at a senior keeper level and then at a supervisor level. And so each time there was a change, it was friends or something that was like recruiters coming after me saying, hey, have you thought about this curator position or whatever? So it was kind of a progression that occurred because of the foundation that I built. And then like life would just put opportunities in front of me where I'm like, okay, this is a time I can consider and I can do this.
It was in design, staying within the zoo industry, I really did feel that, you know, I was able to make a difference for animals on a day to day basis, help shape the next generation of, you know, people that are going to be caring for them, conserving them, working to save them.
And then on the side, it was actually Elsa that introduced me. Elsa Poulsen, she was, she and I had met in Calgary when she was a senior keeper there and I was baby keeper and she was one of my, one of my mentors. And later on, when we reconnected after splitting up and doing our separate things for many years, just before she and I founded the BearCare group together because of a different type of conference, she had been working with advocacy groups like the PETA foundation, hsus, aldf, and a lot of it was focused on Berla's story. Well, I'm sure we'll talk about, but like, you know, rescuing the Suarez circus bears, which were in the, all over the news at that time. And it opened a door and disabused me of any preconceived notions I had because Elsa was a very strong personality with very strong opinions and I respected her. And here she was working closely with groups that were kind of the antithesis of the zoo industry and doing a great job of it and building strong relationships. And as Elsa's health failed and I also got to know these groups better and I was able to take over some of Elsa's work at the end, it really got my foot in the door into advocacy and working with groups that I had never considered. And so that became not secondary. I did it as well as the zoo, the zoo work, but it became really integral because there I was making a difference directly as well. We were saving animals, we were making a difference to legislation through some of the expert testimony in federal courts.
Anybody that mired in the, during the pandemic themselves in the couch and watched the Tiger King. I was integral and involved with each of those cases. Those were federal ESA cases. And it just sort of evolved over time. But it gives for me, it's a sense of doing something, making a difference, and also helping animals. I was on site. It wasn't just going after people that were necessarily not treating animals well or were, you know, creating problematic situations.
I met the animals, like, I saw the animals in these situations and we were able to get them out and rescue them. And now you can see them in sanctuaries or different places having completely different and improved lives. And that for me, has really become the core of the decisions that, you know, I make. And what I want to be able to do is make those changes not only for animals, for people, for organizations, but hopefully inspire others, colleagues, professionals, or, you know, younger professionals, whether it's in the industry or out, to really say, like, this is a niche where we really need to help out, like, we need to be able to do something and more people need to step up and be a voice for these animals. And so it's all my 30 plus years of experience, just across the board helps because it gives me the background to be able to make assessments, to make recommendations, to try to help and to try to make a difference as I kind of navigate these choices. And I feel like, you know, like the Dukes of Hazard, like, you know, I'm going to end up wherever the wind takes me for whatever situation pops up, but I'm there to help the people and the animals as I can. It sounds kind of cheesy, but that's how it is.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Oh, I mean, that's, that's what it all boils down to at the end of the day. I mean, I don't think there's anything more rewarding than when you kind of, you see an animal that's in pain and then you then see that transformation when they kind of realize that they're safe and then they can, you know, be themselves finally without that kind of fear of, you know, being able to express themselves or having the opportunity or.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: Security to do that.
[00:11:37] Speaker C: And it's all well, and it's been interconnected. Like, there's been really tremendous examples. Like, I mean, one of my Dade City wild things was 1 of the ESA Endangered Species Act I was on. And while they had gotten rid of because of the pressure on them, interactions with cats and swimming with tiger cubs that had been pulled from their moms because of the pressure from the ESA case, they switched to animals not protected. And so they had this little brown bear cub at one point that now they were doing interactions with that was just being poorly taken care of and tormented. And then years later, that same poor little Cuban, you know, ended up at another place that we actually ended up investigating when they got rid of it. And eventually, you know, you get to rescue that animal and you know that it's ended up at an accredited sanctuary somewhere. And not only can you take a breath of relief because you saw it when it was a baby struggling and suffering, and now it wasn't the best path for the animal, but now it's in an environment where it can thrive and nobody can see that and not recognize, like, you know, what an impact that we have made for, you know, not only that animal, but for the whole situation and surrounds that allows that to happen.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: Yeah, no, definitely.
So when was it that you actually kind of first worked with bears?
[00:12:57] Speaker C: So I have been working. I have worked with bears my entire career. I. I'm sure there's someone else out there, but I am one of the only people I know that has worked and taken care of all eight extant bear species when I was in Zoo Atlanta. And then I got to go to China to work with them there. I've been invited because of my training background.
But even at the Al oming's Polar park used to be the Alberta Game Farm. It was infamous back in the late 50s and 60s when he opened it. But we had bears, large grizzly bears there. They were actually supposedly some of the last. The last two individuals of a subspecies known as the Swan Hills Grizzly. And then even when I was working film industry briefly, almost every zoo I've worked at has either had bears or has gotten bears, or I've worked with and collaborated another facility that actually has them. So they have been from the start of my career all the way, you know, through to now as, you know, co founder and president of the Bear Care Group. They've really. And they weren't a species. I've been a big cat guy. I love the big cats. Started off as tigers growing up. There's a poster of a tiger on one wall and a poster of Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman on the other. Do with that what you will.
But I always, always love bears. I always worked really well with them. And working with Elsa, they kind of grew even more on me. And then I realized that kind of my approach to how I work with wildlife and management works really well with bears. I don't work great with Some species because I'm big and loud and bold and I move a lot and that birds and I don't always get along. Bears, Bears are great big cats.
It just happened over time. It wasn't designed to work with all eight species of bears. It just, I did and I enjoyed it and I love them. I missed them a lot. The two pandas I spent most of my time with, Yang Yang and Lin Lun, they're back actually in China now at the Chengdu base. But I think about them a lot. Even though they were one of the more frustrating species I've ever cared for, I, they, they had so much personality and I just love them so much that they were an integral part and a shaping part of my career. So always been bears.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Oh, that's great to hear. I mean it's kind of funny because recently the UK and China there's been some negotiations and now apparently there's going to be, you know, visa free travel to, from the UK to China. But like you can go for 30 days and the first thing I thought was it's like, oh, could I go to Chengdu?
[00:15:25] Speaker C: It's like it's my time in Chengdu. So when I, when I was in Zoo Atlanta I was one of the, the lead panda keepers and I had really been focusing on operant conditioning training for voluntary participation in husbandry and medical care. And I had a paper published about voluntary blood draws because we, I was doing injection training, blood draw training, whatever. With the pandas all protected contact, there was always a barrier.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Was there like a sort of little barrier that they could put their paw or something like that or they just.
[00:15:53] Speaker C: Kind of created, either manipulated the environment or there was a panel that we designed that our in house maintenance team like where we could move them around, access different body parts. We actually designed a PVC sleeve because of pandas and that weird little pseudo thumb they'll grab.
And so most bears you train top of a paw from front or back but with the pain is we actually like, like you would an orang orangutan. We actually had a sleeve where they would put their thing through and we would go in through the vein on the forearm. Worked really well at the time like in Atlanta collaborated very closely with the Chengdu base on for research. Dr. Rebecca Snyder was our leader at the time and was doing research at the base as well. We always had a Chinese colleague with us in Atlanta and a couple of them had seen over time what I was doing and what we were able to do with our pandas as A team. And so I was actually invited to go to Chengdu for five weeks to teach them and show them like, you know, how I pull off the operant conditioning, how to go through the stages, was actually one of the best experiences I ever had. And like they, they really do try at Chengdu to take away, you know, training enrichment practices that tend to be more western focused, but really try to improve animal welfare in a way that I enjoyed. I haven't been there for years, but Chengdu was a great city to visit and the panda base was a really, really good experience. And so if you've not been, I recommend it.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Okay. Don't worry, it's on the list, the ever growing list of places.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Oh, that's amazing.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: And obviously because like I remember there was that IMAX film that came out a few years back, it was about pandas and that was the one where I think they were trying to rehabilitate.
[00:17:40] Speaker C: For release, but it wasn't that released. I actually was invited to a science center in Florida to be the guest speaker to introduce that IMAX film and talk a little bit about pandas and my experiences. So yeah, I know exactly the film you're talking about.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Well, there you go.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: It's a small world.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Yeah, Pandas are one of those. I haven't, I don't, I don't know too much about them, so I haven't really worked with them.
[00:18:03] Speaker C: They're less, they're still bears. They're less bear that. I'm putting this in quotations. They're less bear than the other ones. Like, I mean, you mentioned bear. What does everybody think of? Usually grizzly, polar bear maybe and stuff. But deep down they're still bears. Like they've got the structure, they've got the behaviors. There's a lot going on in there. They're clever, they're manipulative, they work with their environment. They're complex, they're just, they're cute and they're kind of dumpy and they just sit around eating bamboo and you really underestimate them until all of a sudden you are reminded that they are a bear as they bite through like you know, a 4 inch diameter piece of bamboo. Or there's an incident where a tourist gets too close and they get grabbed and all of a sudden you're like, oh yeah, that's a 300 pound bear right there. Yep, I remember.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Oh yeah, well actually, I mean, it's not every day I have someone who has been a zoo director.
So I did have a few sort of questions on that, well, since you actually just mentioned it, I was like, oh, about managing unexpected animal behavior or emergencies. I just wanna, I wondered what you had to say on that.
[00:19:07] Speaker C: So it comes down planning and infrastructure. I mean I've been doing this for so long now. Like back at the game farm, there was nothing. If something went wrong, I was, you figured it out, you just, you just grabbed something, you figured it out. It's like, oh, that tree came down on that fence and that animal's loose. Well, let's grab some shovels in the truck, hurt them and get them back in. Like now that is not modern animal care.
Now like you are going to have, even if you're not an accredited institution, if you are working to be like reputable and safe, you have plans in place in the United States. You have to have a USDA license and they actually have, you have to have a contingency plan, emergency plans and things in place. So hopefully you've already developed. Here's what we do in this situation, like a code red, a dangerous animal is out. Here are the steps that we take. You build relationships with the community, the police, the fire departments, whatever else. But as we know, the best laid plans all go completely awry because an animal and children are never going to act like you think that they're going to. So you still have to be very responsive.
I am lucky in that I am, I think quickly, I think on the spot. And I'm a very creative problem solver that can take in a situation, know what my resources are and figure out the fast and safest way to contain or deal with a situation or resolve an issue or solve a crisis and then really try to rally resources. And that's what it comes down to is knowing what you have available to you, setting yourself up for success by teaching people or making sure you have supplies, access the things you need and then just knowing that you can make decisions that are going to likely be as successful as you can be in the situation when something's going to come up. Because it's going to. I, I promise you, I felt as you get into less so as a keeper, but as you get into any sort of leadership and people start bringing to you all the problems, everything from like rodent control to broken something to animal crises and whatever your, your, your life feels like, all you do is run around putting out fires all day and someone else's fires usually. But it's also kind of a sense of achievement and accomplishment that you can do these things and pull it off and lead with hopefully Grace and some dignity and some professionalism by the end of the day and, you know, before you leave, go home, pass out, have a drink or whatever, you know, floats your boat, you know, at night to relax and wind down before you do it all again and pull some meaning out of it as well.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's for sure. I mean, when you said that about, oh, our trees falling down, we've got to do this, I was like, I had some flashbacks to Borneo because we had. I essentially had to develop the escape protocol, like after the fact. Not as well, but it meant that the next time it happened, we knew what to do.
[00:21:54] Speaker C: Right. And then, and then you work with your team and you're like, how could we have changed this? What could we do? You learn where people's skills are because some people are great in a crisis and some people are not. And you need to know your team's limitations because if somebody's going to freeze up and panic, like you basically give them the job of going into the commissary and monitoring a radio or something like that. Whereas the people. But then on the flip side, there's your gung ho heroes who something happens and there you need to know that they're also going to follow direction and whatever else and not go off and do something unsafe on their own. So it's really team management. How did everybody do in this situation? What can we learn from improve and really encouraging those discussions. So like you said, even if it's after the fact, update current policies, develop new ones if you don't have them. And they're just, they're really plans to what could happen and how can I deal with it if it does? I've always been a realist.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: I.
[00:22:49] Speaker C: Something's gonna go wrong, let's do our best to deal with it. So we're planned. If something, if nothing goes wrong, excellent. I'm great. If it does go wrong, we're ready. That's been how I kind of manage my whole life, personal and otherwise.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: Yeah, no, no, sounds fair to me. So what are the sort of main challenges you've kind of faced being in that, that role as well, like with team management, like you just said, like is examples of. I know I've come across where there's been the, the mentality of, oh, you know, we've done something a certain way, so we just keep doing it. There's no, there's no drive to kind of think why they're doing it or if they should change it. And especially sometimes, which I'm sure we'll get into when we get the bear care group. Talk about behavior based husbandry. You know, the animals needs aren't always at the forefront of what people are doing.
[00:23:34] Speaker C: Well just.
And so a lot of it is.
And this has been like throughout my career. As you're going up, I'm like, this is the building and the teaching and really trying to share like what we do with the bearcare group. Here's the resources, here's why we sit. We believe this is best practices.
And when you come into a situation and sometimes it's like it's the old adage, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Well, how things have always worked. When I worked in Omaha, we had some, I'll just call them, I'm air quoting again, old school supervisors and leaders and whatever that just, you know, hey, we've, we've been here for 30 years. This is how we've always done it. It's fine. Well, it's really not. And like here's the current science. But then you run into individuals that are there. That's their job. They're there every day. They believe they're doing. And at this point it's an adequate job. Should it be better? Could it be improved? Or is there new science? There's new science every day. I mean there's a new paper that comes out, there's a new discovery, there's a new way of looking at a situation.
Somebody conducted a study that we realized that, you know, negative reinforcement maybe doesn't work quite the same way we think it does. You know what I mean? There's always something that should have you rethinking and improving what you're doing. And if you're not, then that becomes a problem. So sometimes it's stubbornness, sometimes it's, I've always done it this way. I don't have to do anything different. Sometimes it's lack of exposure and lack of knowledge. I've worked in facilities and areas where you're just, you're kind of by yourself. You're secluded teams that don't have real connections to other facilities, zoos or don't keep up on current science or practices that just, they, they haven't evolved and really kind of trying to encourage them and it's. But there's no one set problem. You go to some places and it's, you know, keepers don't want to do more because they're union and they're not paid for it.
And then other times it's like, well, they want to do everything and you get stubborn managers that maybe either have control issues or don't believe that they have the skill to do that or don't. That's not the manager's goals in something. And so there's a lot of struggles through the American association of Zookeepers. I've been with them for years. We've done behavioral husbandry, training, bear care. There's almost always same recurring problems. Like if we do a behavior workshop, I can guarantee you I can almost always come up with the top three things that people are going to bring up. And so then there's ways of kind of dealing with those and addressing them and helping to teach them through. You write papers, you try to coach, you try to talk. Because there's no one specific problem. It can be unique to the people, to the areas, to keepers. There could be social dynamics between your staff. I mean, there could be any number of things, funding, budgeting, that really affect that. And it's trying to assess those variables and still always one foot in front of the other and always improving, constantly, every, every day a little bit more. And it, it's exhausting. It really is. And for me, aside from like, you know, team management, always, those dynamics you always have to be on, you always have to be trying to lead by example.
There's a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork and politics as you climb to the top that you know about, but until you experience it, it's really different. And that is what a lot of was lending into me, really rethinking. Like for me, being the zoo director was like, oh, there's the pinnacle of what I've always been built building up to. But having worked at, you know, several facilities and with several others, it became a. Is this really what I want to do is running around putting out everybody else's fires all the time, being exhausted, working seven days a week, you know, doing paperwork, budgets, bureaucracy, when what I loved was the animals and making a difference in their lives and the caregivers lives. And so that was where I really started last year, rethinking with friends, family and some colleagues about, you know, how can I go about approaching this. Did more research on Elsa's history and sort of timeline and that's where. All right, well, maybe consulting is, is an opportunity to, for me to go full time. Terrifying as it is, let's think about it. Because the things that become core duties and responsibilities at that level of zoo management were, were incongruent with the things that I love most about what I have a passion for in this Career, I mean, is what it is, what it kind of comes down to. It's trying to figure out what, what to do about that and how to, how to write yourself.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: It's like, I guess reevaluating what's important to you. What is it you say you want to be working with the animals and with the caregivers. I guess you're being taken away from that slightly. So you're just like, right, time to pivot.
[00:28:13] Speaker C: Right. Well. And even in the instances where it's like, you know, at my age, I don't need to be doing direct animal care as much anymore.
I realized that like, I'm just, my body's not quite built for it the same way, but I can still make a difference. Like when we talk about like legislation. Recently I wrote a couple of letters to one of the states here who is trying to do some progressive animal welfare legislation. So that's still making a difference, you know, going. I've got a brief contracting consulting trip coming up in a couple of weeks where it's revisiting a couple of facilities where I've been to before where we've made some USDA recommendations and expressed concerns over how some of the animals are being cared for. And we hope to see progress and change in those times. So it's really now focused on like the various things I can do, but where again, I feel like I'm making an impact and a difference whether it's right with an animal. One on one, I'm still a great animal trainer. Every time we have a bear care workshop, we'll talk about it. We demonstrate like hands on. Here's what you can do with a bear in a short period of time. Because that's my roots are. I loved training. I evolved into it like, you know, kind of accidentally like, hey, this is something I can do. I love teaching, I love sharing that I can do that one on one still and teach others with that direct contact and work with animals. But the more esoteric pieces, the legislation, the overall care, the policies and the practices, that's still benefiting everybody. And that's the kind of thing I really want to be able to do more of too.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. I mean, yeah, when you mentioned training, I'm that that was something that was kind of an eye opening experience when I first saw someone doing it with a bear. And it was life changing, I think, for the bear. And also something that I didn't even because I'd come in and I was just more focused on. Right. Need to sort out the enclosure. We need to sort out the food, like the diets and all that. I was, I was focused on all this sort of stuff and the training was not something that I even thought about. So when I saw it happening, because there was a bear, specifically, there was one bear, I can remember a rescue bear coming and, you know, all the stereotypical behaviors. You know, you've thrown himself against the bars, running back and forth.
And after like, I don't know, like an hour of training, different bear completely. I'm like, didn't recognize it.
[00:30:22] Speaker C: Most of these animals, like, where we're going to engage in like a training program, an enrichment program, they're not, they're not going back. They can't go back into their native habitat. Like they're under human care and management for a reason.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:33] Speaker C: And so at that point, like, we still have to respect that they have bear things to do and they want to do bare things, but now they have new dynamics. You're part of their, you are a relationship in their life and you are the one as a caregiver that chooses what that relationship is. Is it positive, is it negative?
Are you the stick or are you the treat kind of thing? And it is up to us to reshape that. And that was one of those things I just learned that I was. I do innately and I do naturally. And helping teach people exactly what you said, whether it's a cub, whether it's an animal that's experienced it. Actually, my favorite animals to train have always been the older animals that everyone else has like labeled as difficult or, you know, aggressive or whatever else that people have kind of given up on.
Because that's the one where you've like every, every little tiny step means the world to you because you can visibly see the change in the impact that it's had on their lives.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: Any examples that will come to mind?
[00:31:29] Speaker C: Well, there's, there's a couple. One is bear care, don't let me forget. But when I. One of the facilities I worked at, I was assigned by the director to go down ton of cats in an old school cat house. Big cats.
And I was tasked with going down and not only working with the animals, but teaching the team how to work with them. And small team, inexperienced in operant conditioning and training. That was of course my history at that time, like tiger training. I had written some papers, I'd done several presentations, particularly on injection and blood draw training again.
But there was when I was like divvying up, okay, who wants to work with which animal? We were kind of pairing off. I ended up having eight cats that were assigned to me that no one else picked as their favorites or whatever else. But one of them was this old jaguar. His name was lt. It stood for Little Thunder because he, he was aggressive. He had a history of, you know, charging bars and being aggressive. And so of course, old school keeper management, we've seen it whether it's in Asia, here in the U.S. hoses, noise, threat, scaring, aversion, making them shift that way. Well, that, that, that's associated with you as the caregiver. So now you show up and the animal expects to receive aversive treatment or whatever else. And so that just, the relationship just keeps snowballing and getting worse. He also had cataracts. He couldn't see. He was like limping around like he was old. He couldn't climb well, so they didn't give him logs and things to do. And so it was really just one of those things where I just wanted to start working with him and I had to overcome the challenges. He couldn't see well, how do I get him to target?
And within like a week, Adam learned how to target to a ball again through a protective barrier. And when I got him to follow that up for the first time and his little old body climbed up the side, every one of his paws, his toes, the nail, because he had nothing to climb on because they were worried about his age had curved around and had grown into the pad and half of them were necrotic. So when we discovered that the next day he had a veterinary procedure, they clipped it all out. Well, now I can pop him up for wound treatment to see how it's doing. We found out it wasn't actually cataracts, it was glaucoma. So he got actually put on a medication because of course the eye pressure caused pain. And he just, over his last couple of years, he always knew when I was coming. He would always come up. He always trained for me. I never did anything amazing or advanced with him because he just couldn't get there. But we overcame 15 years of aversive old school care for this animal and we're able to make such a difference for him even in a short period of time.
And one of the other examples, the bearcare one. So when we go, we'll do international conferences which we'll talk about, where we invite speakers in at several days.
We'll usually pair with a zoo and stuff. But when we do targeted workshops like we've done in Vietnam with animals, Asia Wildlife SOS in India and in Romania we went to, I don't remember the name of the zoo there, but we went to the zoo and we had asked them to pick an animal. Well, obviously I've never been to these facilities and I asked them to pick a bear that they want to see us work with. And so I've never met this animal in my life. And so I gather up all the best things for whatever species of bear. And in this, this instance, it was a big older male brown bear and he had no name, they didn't name their bears. It was just one tube, whatever female, this and that. And he was living in this kind of cement bunker of a building that came out into a cement patio with your standard metal bars and whatever else. And I, I hedged my bets. I had my pockets full of grapes and fruits and different things I could find, but I also found like, stole a couple of package of those little famous Amos mini chocolate chip cookies, had my pocket stuffed with those too. And I did go up to meet him and I gave him a name. I just called him Borscht. I know that that is absolutely not Romanian, but it was the first thing that came to mind. And Dr. Heather Bacon, she is our veterinary advisor, she's done a lot of work. She's probably one of the most renowned bear veterinarians in the world. And she is there. And we would always tag team with these demonstrations. And I remember all I saw was the snout. I'd still never even seen this bear. And now we've got a whole delegation of people that are showing up to observe how you can do a training demonstration. And so it's pulling all the powers of timing, relationship building, subtlety and whatever else out and called, made some noise to first get his attention. This snout peeks out of this concrete den, toss a grape, and then when he showed some interest, toss a cookie. And so next thing you know, this big overweight old arthritic bear comes shambling out, looks at me, looks at Heather. She's talking to people while they're doing, I'm just talking to him. I'm crouched down, tossing little treats here and there.
Within a 15 minute, 20 minute session, he came over, met us. I was feeding him treats. He learned how to target very quickly because of timing. Touch his nose to a ball on the end of a stick. People are watching this happen. And we were able to get him to put his paws up at one point.
So meanwhile, Heather is telling them we can now see his body condition, we can see his claws, we can see his pads when he opens his mouth, anticipating a treat. We can see his mouth, we can smell his breath. So even in this brief session, a bear I've never met, that's never interacted with people like you said, doesn't have that history, came out and was training and demonstrating to people that had never met the bear or his caregivers, that didn't know this was possible, what you could do in a short period of time.
And I tear up thinking about borscht, like even now because hoping that that impact would, you know, kind of carry on, but knowing even with a cantankerous old guy that has never had anything like that in his life, even in a short little period of time, you can build a relationship with him, make some connections, teach him that there's a new way of looking at the world and that people can be there to help you.
And that's always been one of those most rewarding experiences. And we would do something like that wildlife sos. We did it with sloth bears. Every facility that we went to and we visited, we would have that kind of demonstration to engage people and let them know what you can accomplish through relationship building and positive reinforcement training in such even a short period of time.
[00:37:56] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, it's just like you say, some people don't, it's not even a consideration and it's, it makes such a difference.
[00:38:03] Speaker C: Well, and things work like when, when you look at it, I mean, training isn't just positive reinforcement, the science of operant conditioning, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment. But when you use aversive stimuli, you are the aversive stimuli. That's what they learn. If you want to use positive reinforcement, reward based training, you're going to have the best chance at building a relationship and kind of long term down the road without a lot of the psychological side effects that can come with using aversives. But they work as the problem. When you use noise, when you use punishment, when you use a hose like you get quickly the results you want. And when you're an old school or even a zookeeper that's short on time or whatever else, and nobody's taught you a different way, walked you through giving you the support and the resources, you go with what you know.
And sometimes, sometimes those techniques are terrible.
Some of the older school techniques we've run into that we've been approached with over the years and discussed at conferences. I can't remember the specific location, but one place used fire sticks where they literally use like lit something on fire and use that to chase bears, you know, inside to shift or whatever else. Like these are techniques that they work for them here in the us I know of facilities that have used BB guns to force hoofstock to shift. It's no different, but it's taking that out, helping people understand what the animal is experiencing and providing them with different alternate ways. They've still got to make the decision on their own to take that time and make that investment.
But it's really trying to help them understand it's in yours and the animal's best interest to take those steps.
[00:39:39] Speaker B: Well, yeah, definitely. Just before we go on to talk a bit more about the bear care group then, I kind of wanted to also get your take on the role of like, I guess, zoos in the wider conservation picture. Zoos and facilities like that.
[00:39:53] Speaker C: So I think we have to watch our. It's not watch our terminology, we have to be aware of our terms. And I'm learning this because of my advocacy work and some of what I've done. Zoo becomes a very generic term that the general public think zoo and they're like, oh, I can go and I can, you know, see the animals and blah, blah, blah, you know, from international travels. And so do I.
Zoo has a very different connotation. You can go to a zoo in South America where you can pay to go and sit and have your picture taken with a sedated lion and there's really poor, dilapidated facilities and care. But I've dealt with that here in some of my ESA cases where a small rural place, there are little tiny, quote, zoos, they're roadside facilities all over. And then you compare that with places that are reputable or who have gone through the work to maintain professional standards, to really make a difference for not only animal care, how their staff are treated and cared for, and then their impact on conservation and the world. And there's a really wide range of what zoo actually means. I think that reputable and accredited zoos and sanctuaries, because you have the same thing, you have pseudo sanctuaries that are there and, oh, come and hug and pet this animal. And then the true ones that are doing accredited, reputable sanctuary work, they're there to make a difference for the animals, for the people. And that it's that lead by example thing again. It's really there to let people know that I believe we're stewards, we have evolved to become the predominant and, you know, life form on this planet. But all these others are still here on the planet. It's our Responsibility. We're the reason there are conservation issues, there's pollution, trash, extinctions, all these things.
We have to do better where we can. And so for me, animal care under human management, whether that's under captive human management, conditions like zoos and sanctuaries, or most reserves, you know, out in the wild now, you go to Africa, most of those places are under human management now. They're reserves, they're monitored, they're patrolled. So it's not the same thing, but it's still human care and management and recognizing that we have that responsibility. And I think for most people, the most accessible thing that they're going to find is a zoo and hopefully through education, whether it's the bear care group, groups like the association of Zoos and Aquariums, AZA here in the United States, EASA in Europe, WAZA globally, that really help understand, like, what our expectations should be for exotic animals that live under human care and wildlife under human care. And look at those.
We still have failures, I think sometimes.
I would hope that, you know, zoos around the world would step up and take more active roles. I'm a very open advocate. I've had some cases and written reports about the circuses that travel here in the United States. Elsa felt strongly about the Suarez circus bears. And I have done years of research with Ringling, with Shrine. More recently, it was the Cardon circus really trying to go in, investigate, see the conditions that these animals are under, and then make advisements for what are best practices for what these animals should be experiencing now. And there's. I really wish, and I would hope that more accredited and reputable zoos and sanctuaries would step up and be part of that voice and process.
But until that's the reality, it's going to be, again, those individuals that make a difference. But everybody knows you say zoo, everybody has an idea of what that is in their head and is hopefully going to at least have had a favorable experience. And that's probably going to be their only contact with animals outside of the television in their lives. And so I think that they're really reputable. Zoos and aquariums and sanctuaries have an integral role in connecting people everywhere with wildlife and with nature and what their role and their impact, because every one of us, every choice we make every day can make a difference, even in a tiny way, and helping people understand that. That sounds super preachy, I know, but I, that's, that's truly my belief in where I work from.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: No, like you're preaching to the choir here. So it's all good. Speaking of that, let's talk a little bit about Elsa then, because obviously you've talked about how you first met and then ended up founding the Bearcare group with her. I just kind of wanted you to talk about what her approach to animal welfare was and kind of how it influenced yours.
[00:44:19] Speaker C: So when I first met Elsa, we worked together in Calgary years ago. I had just come back from the film industry because I realized that was not what I wanted to do. And I was on as a seasonal hire at the Calgary Zoo. She was one of my two mentors there of the favorite people that I worked with. And at the time she was actually working in the North America section, usually with either the polar bears or she was over in the wild with the grizzlies and the black bears. We actually had, goodness, I think four species of bear in Calgary at the time.
And I just.
Elsa was.
Elsa was Elsa. I really got along well with her. If you could both demonstrate and earn respect, you were great with Elsa. She was. She was a tough cookie. She knew her stuff. She loved her bears. She did her homework, she did her research. And her dedication and passion were unrivaled. But when you get an individual like that, they can sometimes, like alienate people like within that sort of workplace or environment.
And.
But she was driven. Like, there were reasons that, like, you know, there were studies on polar bears and pacing happening while she was there. There were reasons while she was at another facility that they rescued the Suarez circus bears. And she was integral and involved with saving Berla and the others. And it's that drive and passion that not everybody appreciates. I experience this every day in my life as well. But for me it was an instant bonding experience. And we got along very well earlier on. And then just my career took me down to the United States. There was just more opportunities, you know, down here.
Elsa had her career trajectory and then a few several years back, 15 or 16 now, it was actually not Elsa. It was a different researcher that reached out to me and asked, they were going to be hosting a bear related conference if I would come and talk about learning and operant conditioning with bears.
And I did. And that's where I learned that Elsa was going to be there again. And we reconnected after several years and we instantly hit it off. That conference was not a particular success, but we talked about it and with a few other people that became our board.
We realized there was a need. And then within six months, we had founded together the nonprofit group the BearCare Group. And so we started working very closely, even though we weren't at the same facility and I was still working full time in zoos. Elsa was consulting full time at this point and then dedicating a ton of time to the Bearcare group. That's where we really started putting out the resources, hosting conferences.
Most of them were, most of them were in the west coast to begin with. And then we had like, you know, bamf. We finally got it over to New Jersey and we really got a good core following. And it was a wide group of people. It was zookeepers, it was people at sanctuaries, it was researchers and biologists.
It was, I mean, it was really an amazing cross section of people that would come even from different advocacy groups. And we've just worked over time to figure out kind of what the needs were.
Elsa knew her stuff. She knew what she wanted to do, she knew beer, she knew behavior based husbandry was kind of that concept shows work from and she would help everybody with that.
She relied on a lot of us to bring in, like, other pieces, improved science. Like, she focused on me for training and for welfare. She would, she knew enrichment, she knew training, she knew the benefits of those, but she would just focus on schedules, planning what those bears needed. And she had all those key sayings that were just so poignant that affect all of us and still do today.
She would talk to her bears and like, who are you and what can I do for you?
Bears just need, quote, stuff like, so that they can do bear things.
And it was just her whole approach to it. And she was unwavering in her dedication and again, fiercely protective of bears in a way that not necessarily everybody understood or, you know, always got along with. But you could never deny her her drive and her dedication. And she imparted that to all of us. We created a really strong team.
And then it was actually when we were trying to plan. We had been trying to go to Vietnam and we were going to work with the Animals Asia team and Elsa wasn't able to join us. That was when she was first diagnosed and she had let us know with advanced breast cancer.
And it was a surprise to her and it advanced very quickly. We ended up losing Elsa several months after that. So from beginning to end, it was a shock for all of us and I think for everybody in the bear world and the bear care group for sure.
And so we had to completely restructure the BearCare group, how we interacted with one another because Elsa was the hub of our wheel.
As co founder, I Ended up taking over president. I've been in that role ever since. And we've really worked hard to maintain Elsa's foundational ideals and approach to how we help bears and caregivers around the world.
And at the same time, always take in current science and what we're learning from our global interactions and partners and always evolving what we're able to put out there and what we're able to do. And so her legacy is still actually lives on.
I miss her regularly. You know, I talk to her almost every day. And when she was, you know, really having some challenges at the end, and we were figuring out she was helping figure out what the transition would be, it was really. It was still inspirational to everybody. And even at conferences, years later, you know, we'll put up a photo or whatever else, and all of us that knew her. Can't I even. You can hear it in my voice now. Can't help but become emotional because of the formative impact she had on all of us. Not only was she there early on for me when I was a baby keeper in my career, but she was really foundational in helping me again overcome preconceived notions for who I could work with, the difference that I could make, that, you know, zoos and maybe aquariums weren't doing and how we could actually go about that. And that unwavering dedication that everybody knew her as the hero or the mother of bears everywhere.
And it was actually my llc I actually re made here, you know, in Illinois Behavioral and Environmental Solutions. That was Elsa's original.
Her. Her organization that she worked with when she was specifically consulting for people.
And I wanted to honor her.
And I also wanted to, like, make sure that anybody as we work with the BearCare group and others, that people understand that those are still the foundational principles of relationship building, passion, stewardship, advocacy, but just being there for bears and people.
For me, it's animals and people. I'll do big cats in a wider range. But those core ethics, morals, and goals are all still there.
We still talk about them every day. As, you know, in the Bear Care Group, they're part of what we do and what we're always forging forward. And they're an integral facet of my life and how I perceive the world as well.
[00:51:42] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I mean, I wish I could have met her. I mean, she sounds amazing, but I know, like, obviously, BearCare groups, her legacy. And one of the things I really like about the BearCare group is the fact that obviously the sharing information and collaboration is kind of a key cornerstone of it and correct. It's also non partisan. So you know, people from all fields, disciplines can come together, share knowledge and as you say, the board's made up of experts and research, husbandry, veterinary and around the world.
[00:52:12] Speaker C: It's not just we're all from here in the US like we, you, me, we have people from around the world and we work with organizations from around the world because that's, that's what it, that's what it is. That's what we need to do and we really.
You can be from the top accredited facility, you can be from some roadside place that is just trying to do better. You could be a circus bear trainer that's coming into trailer. We're going to be here for you. We're not going to judge, we're just going to tell you what we know, why we believe this works and give you all the resources to succeed.
[00:52:43] Speaker A: We'll leave it there for now.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: Thank you for listening.
[00:52:45] Speaker A: I hope it's wet your appetite for more.
I realised after this chat that I have actually seen Beastmaster. Not the first one, but Beastmaster two. I did have it on an old VHS from Blockbuster.
[00:52:57] Speaker B: Remember them?
[00:52:58] Speaker A: But in the meantime, in the next episode, we'll hear more about Jay, Elsa Poulsen and the Bear Care Group Dogs and Dancing Sparrows.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: See you then.
[00:53:13] Speaker A: The Bear Den the American Bear Association Podcast was written and presented by me, Philip Stubley. The music was composed by React Music.
Thank you to everyone who has helped make this podcast possible, including Karen Hauserman, Bill Lee, Clary Lee, Stephanie Horner, Donna Brzinka, Ross Coyer and Angie Page.
You can find out more about the American bear
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[00:54:29] Speaker C: Sam.
