Bearing up under pressure

Kio, a 390-pound grizzly, is trying to break into a 30-gallon cooler. She’s rolled it over, gnawed on the plastic, and tried to pry open the lid with her claws. 

When Kio loses interest in the cooler, Peeka⁠—a subordinate female⁠—moves in for a turn. But Kio growls possessively. The bears snarl and engage in body bluffing before Peeka slinks away. 

“That’s why I test coolers with two bears,” said Chelsea Davis, animal care facilities manager at the Washington State University Bear Research, Education, and Conservation Center. “There’s jealousy; there’s competition.” 

WSU grizzlies frequently contribute to science. Researchers study them to learn about bear behavior, nutrition, habitat needs, and the physiological changes that occur during hibernation. 

Recently, the bears became collaborators in a new project⁠—testing coolers for manufacturers. 

For manufacturers to earn “bear-resistant” certification from the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, their cooler designs must withstand a full hour of bruin contact or pass a technical evaluation. 

Most of the testing takes place at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Montana, where captive bears have been mauling coolers in the name of research for nearly two decades. But when that center developed a backlog of untested product, WSU’s bear center stepped in to help. 

Manufacturers pay a fee for the testing and send their designs to Pullman, where WSU grizzlies have responded enthusiastically to the coolers Davis packs with bait.

“We want something smelly, something noisy, and something familiar from their diet,” she explains, tossing two sausages, a handful of apples, and bear kibble into the cooler. The bait gets drenched with honey water before Davis secures the cooler’s padlocks.  

Grizzlies have insatiable appetites during hyperphagia, the weeks leading up to hibernation. For wild bears, coolers represent a potentially easy food source.

WSU grizzlies can break into a standard picnic cooler in two to three minutes. The sturdier coolers sent for testing pose more of a challenge. Kio and Peeka spent 20 minutes with the cooler before they lost interest.