Bear ambassador: Lynn Rogers advocates for human-bear coexistence
Biologist Lynn Rogers is sitting at the kitchen table in his research center when a big black bear looms in his window.
“Oh,” says Dr. Rogers casually. “There’s Jack now.”
One-Eyed Jack is a 350-pound, 24-year-old bear missing his left eye from a homeowner’s shotgun blast and with a hole in his side, probably from an old car collision. He is one of dozens of wild black bears who occasionally visit Dr. Rogers’ wildlife research center in this pine and aspen forest 13 miles southwest of Ely, Minnesota.
Jack is more regular than most. While other bears often opt for natural berries and ant nests in the forest, Jack is old and a bit stiff, and will go for the trough of cashew nuts and sunflower seeds always available here. He munches blithely as Dr. Rogers sticks his hand into the bear’s scraggly fur and feels the animal’s heartbeat – 106 beats per minute, all fine. The researcher offers several handfuls of hazelnuts, a beary treat, which Jack gently licks from his cupped hands.
Dr. Rogers has spent his life with bears. For decades he walked through the woods alongside wild black bears, hanging out as they ate, and even sleeping next to them. He earned their trust, and has devoted his career to trying to convince the public to see them as gentle creatures – to replace fear with empathy and to challenge persistent misconceptions.
“My life is trying to spread the truth of the bears,” he says. “People grow up the same way I did: seeing the outdoor magazines – fear sells. The covers showed bears in the most ferocious way, hitting somebody and the evil look on the face, evil eyes. [People] interpret everything out
