Maryland Zoo Redux #3 - Grizzly Bears and Arctic Fox

The Polar has competition.  Earlier this spring (and following the death of the Zoo's second Polar Bear over a year ago now) the expansive Arctic Polar Bear exhibit, designed to house bears of both genders at the same time and keep them safely separated, became the home to a pair of orphaned Grizzly Bear cubs.  The Grizzly's are sisters from Montana.  I got to see them the first week they went on display, and now some weeks later two things are clear.   They are growing up!  And the one that was the runt is still the runt...  So much so that I wonder if she would have survived in the wild.  The big sister was bound and determined to dislodge something from within the boulders.  In the fifteen minutes I watched her, she was unsuccessful, but happily engaged in the pursuit.  

The Polar Bear/Grizzly Bear exhibit shares a designed space with Ravens, Snow Owls, Bald Eagles and a pair of Arctic Foxes.  All of these enclosures are wrapped in a mess wiring that allows the trees and bushes to grow in and through--even allowing song birds to flit and out--well, I guess they get out... but obscuring the view of the animals.  And yet the image of one of the little Arctic Foxes fast asleep next to the edge of her enclosure was just too precious not to capture.