Bears finally get room to stretch out

Shaunta Grimes

Tuesday, Nov. 16, 1999 | 11:14 a.m.

Two bears that spent the summer sharing a horse trailer have room to stretch now, but city of Henderson officials say the bears do not have a permanent home at the Betty Honn Animal Adoption Center.

Manfred and Tuffy had a good night's rest Monday in new cages, with fresh hay to lie on and all their itches scratched. The pair spent the afternoon eating apples, fish and watermelon, getting their pictures taken and splashing in their water tanks.

Manfred, a 1,000-pound 9-year-old Kodiak, and Tuffy, a 900-pound 13-year-old grizzly, were kept in a divided, unclean horse trailer by their previous owner, Bill Vergis.

When Vergis gave the bears to the Betty Honn center on Oct. 20, they were kept in the same trailer while cages were built.

It took three weeks for retired boilermakers and ironworkers to build the two 44-by-24-foot cages, by far the largest enclosures at the center. They volunteered 10 hours a day to get the bears out of the trailer, said Donald Hinton, retired boilermaker and friend of the Honn family.

Manfred bounded out of the trailer into his cage, but Tuffy was a little more hesitant. A water hose was used to coax him into his new home. The bears were not fed their lunch so that treats put inside the cage would help to entice them out of the trailer. They ate dozens of apples and chunks of watermelon while the 20 or so onlookers watched.

"This is what it's all about. This is so gratifying," said Teresa Johns, daughter of Betty Honn and president of the center. Johns said Monday afternoon was the first time the bears were able to stretch and walk around since June.

Tuffy left the trailer and immediately began to scratch his back on the bars of his cage. He marked his territory and growled loudly at Manfred if he got too close. The grizzly then collected his apples between his paws and speared them before eating.

Manfred, on the other hand, appeared more laid back, eating his food where he found it and playing in his water tank. The bigger of the two bears, Manfred didn't seemed bothered by Tuffy's growling or by the crowd taking his picture.

"That one's going to sleep good tonight. He's been waiting all summer to scratch that itch," one onlooker said as Tuffy stretched to his full height and rubbed his back on the bars of his cage.

Although the bears' new cages are "a thousand times better than the horse trailer," Henderson spokeswoman Brenda Fischer said, the city animal control office press the center to find them a permanent home.

In the meantime, the city has extended the center's exotic animal license to allow the bears to remain in Henderson while they recuperate.

The bears were offered a permanent home last week at the Performing Animals Welfare Society in Galt, Calif., but no final decision has been made, Johns said. The performing animals society has said it would build the bears a 6,000-square-foot natural habitat, with grass, trees, stumps and pools, if they take the animals in, Pat Derby, the society's director, said last week.

"If the bears leave, Pat's place is wonderful," Johns said.

The bears are being treated for worms, which is common in captive animals, Jordan Desario, center spokesman said. They are also seriously underweight, so it's unclear when the bears will be healthy enough to move.

"We aren't even thinking about (where the bears might go next) right now. We are concentrating on getting them healthy," Desario said.