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This kind of place with animals in semi captivity is not my cup of tea but multiple people in Ely told me I should take my 6 year old there so we did.
I will say the tour guide was knowledgeable and articulate and a gave good history on the 3 bears living at the center and why they are not able to be released. However I was not really convinced they are having the best life there.
I think a lot of the problems come from public expectations that this is going to be similar to a zoo. It's not supposed to be a zoo. Maybe people need to be educated about this ahead of time (although they probably won't listen). You can see from the numerous reviews many patrons have the attitude "I paid my money I should see bears" or "I can see more wildlife at the zoo for cheaper." I do think the prices here are steep, but I don't think the solution is to try to accommodate this attitude.
As they've said in other reviews, they do not force the bears to come and be on display during tour times. However they do encourage them by getting them in the habit of coming up for food. Of course bears are food motivated so of course they show up. Since there are tours once an hour, the bears show up a lot. At least one of the bears was visibly overweight and displayed begging behavior. And, staff apparently sometimes closes the gates on the enclosure to keep the bears from leaving. When I was there one of the gates was closed and Lucky Bear was unable to leave to leave his enclosure (cage, really). They said it was because he was having a conflict with one of the other bears so they keep one or the other in the enclosure for parts of the day. (After business hours reportedly are bears all free to leave and roam the 2 acre lot). It was just kind of depressing.
The exhibits are extensive but they're not very easy to engage with. Tons or words and videos that are sometimes hard to follow the flow of. It is borderline academic. Not great for helping me make it accessible to my kid.
Apparently if we'd come earlier in the day there were other activities including a reptile meet and greet. I didn't see this on the website when I was planning my trip. This may be my bad, I'm not the best at finding this stuff.
The tour was relatively short, which I read other people complain about, but I'm not really sure what they can do about that as most of the bears' 2 acre lot is understandably not accessible to the public. I do think tours once per hour must be exhausting for the staff (and the bears) and not the best use of human resources.
Overall, I suspended disbelief and went even though I had a feeling I'd walk away depressed because the locals amped it up so much, but I would not return or recommend it to others. My daughter...
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This place was INCREDIBLE! SO much to look at and read and learn about bears here! Even if you never get to see a bear!
There's so much hype about being in bear country and the precautions you "must" take to be safe. It really does scare people away from camping or hiking in "bear country" at all, or without buying or renting "bear spray". (At considerable cost!)
The information presented at the North American Bear Center reveals that interactions between humans and black bears are extremely rare, and ones where humans are hurt or even threatened are even more unlikely.
Bears are intelligent, mostly timid, and for the most part - vegetarians - getting only about 10% of their diet from animal sources - mostly ants. Black bears -don't- want to eat humans. They are also more likely to run away if there is a chance encounter. It OK to go back into the woods again!
DO visit this place! It's well worth the entry fee. You could easily spend an entire day here and not be able to take in all of the information here. There are mounted exhibits of bears and other critters, many, many displays and pictures, and a movie that follows bear research. We even met the man who made the movie as he's an educator at the Bear Center.
If you've already been to the nearby Wolf Center - you'll find double or triple the amount of information at the Bear Center. Definitely a must-see in...
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My husband, young daughter, and I arrived at the North American Bear Center on Saturday, June 18th at 9am! We purchased the tickets and was told a tour would be at 10am to go see the bears. I think the only complaint I really have the entire time being at the bear center was how we were greeted when we arrived and purchased our tickets.The person working behind the counter never smiled, barely spoke, and told us no information besides the next tour time. During the hour wait for the first tour, we looked around the center. My daughter loved the cub area inside and enjoyed coloring pictures! She learned so much about bears and one staff member found the salamanders that were hiding in their cage, so we could see how big they were. When it was time to do our tour, our guide was Annie. She was very friendly and did a great job! Since we were the first tour of the day, we were able to see what they feed the bears for breakfast, which was interesting to see. Annie knew a lot about each bear! Our personal favorite was Lucky, he even climbed a tree for us! I felt sorry for Ted, the oldest bear they have. I'm sure he is well taken care of, but he has a hard time moving due to his arthritis. I would recommend coming here and doing the first...
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