{"id":42933,"date":"2019-02-10T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/since-a-young-age-this-bear-has-lived-with-an-audience\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T17:28:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T02:28:13","slug":"since-a-young-age-this-bear-has-lived-with-an-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/2019\/02\/10\/since-a-young-age-this-bear-has-lived-with-an-audience\/","title":{"rendered":"Since a young age, this bear has lived with an audience"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a soap opera star living in Juneau, and she’s a 12-year-old black bear.<\/p>\n

Bear 153’s existence has been thoroughly documented since she was tagged as a cub. Her life, which has included dramatic gender reveals, births, deaths and unusual family drama, was the subject of a Fireside Lecture on Friday night.<\/p>\n

“This is all in our backyards, folks,” said Laurie Craig, former lead naturalist at Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, who gave the talk about Bear 153 at Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center.<\/p>\n

[Traveling to the Gobi desert to study the world’s rarest bear<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Craig began the free, public lecture by explaining who Bear 153 is and who she isn’t.<\/p>\n

Bear 153 is not Nicky, the popular bear with cinnamon fur and namesake nick in her <\/a>ear<\/a>. Bear 153 is identifiable by a two-piece blue tag on her ear and a white heart-shaped patch on her chest that is visible when she stands up.<\/p>\n

“When you see a bear stand, it’s not because they’re becoming aggressive, but because they’re curious and want to see what’s going on,” Craig said.<\/p>\n

Bear 153 was tagged as a cub in 2007 when her mother was collared after the family was found going through trash in a neighborhood near the glacier.<\/p>\n

“That’s not a good way to start a life,” Craig said.<\/p>\n

Craig said the bears were collared and tagged by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game and bears are tagged so there is a better understanding of urban bear and wild bear interaction, food conditioning and coexisting with bears.<\/p>\n

Despite starting off toward developing bad habits, Bear 153 did not become a problem. She spent the summer months around Mendenhall Glacier, fishing in Steep Creek and climbing trees to eat seed pods.<\/p>\n

Craig said the area provides an important environment for Juneau’s bears.<\/p>\n

“This forest has so much for them to eat, they don’t need to go through our garbage,” Craig said.<\/p>\n

At the time of her tagging, Bear 153 was identified as a male, which Craig said made the birth of her first cubs in 2013 a surprise during an already fun time of year.<\/p>\n

“Every spring, we’re so excited when the bears show up again,” Craig said.<\/p>\n

[Traffic could be improving for Mendenhall Valley motorists<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Among that first first litter was a bear with a distinct white V-shaped mark on her chest that’s come to be known as Chevron or Luna. Chevron has since matured and had a cub of her own.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Bear 153 and Chevron did something Craig said she hadn’t previously seen in her 14 years at the glacier and has not seen happen again.<\/p>\n

“153 allowed her 2013 cub to come back and hang out,” Craig said. “So we have a 2-and-a-half-year-old hanging out with the cub of the year. In essence 153 had a nanny. It was teaching [the cub] some bad habits, but they were having a great time together.”<\/p>\n

She said the nanny-reared cub is going to have an interesting life, and she’s excited to see how it plays out.<\/p>\n

“Will he be swaggering through as an adult because he was swaggering as a cub?” Craig asked.<\/p>\n

Craig said that since Chevron would mind the new cub, Bear 153 spent the summer foraging.<\/p>\n

“She spent a lot of time eating that summer because she had the babysitter,” Craig said.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Bear 153 had a litter of four — three of the cubs survived. They appeared on an internationally televised special that came to Juneau that year.<\/p>\n

“This family’s become quite the star of BBC’s ‘Wild Alaska Live<\/a>,” Craig said.<\/p>\n

Craig said she’s hoping Bear 153 is in a den somewhere with the newest branch of her family tree.<\/p>\n

“She is an amazing bear and an amazing mother,” Craig said. “It is such a privilege because of that little piece of blue plastic in her ear that we’ve been able to follow her life practically since she was born.”<\/p>\n

\n

\u2022 Contact arts and culture reporter Ben Hohenstatt at (907)523-2243 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter @BenHohenstatt.<\/b><\/p>\n

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Think Nicky is too mainstream? 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