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Wonder on the tundra



(Animals at Play from Speaking of Faith on Vimeo.)

I've been wondering a lot lately about inter-species relations -- partly as a result of watching my dog Ace and the horses at the ranch in Montana at which we were staying, partly because I just finished reading Life of Pi, Yann Martel's wondrous and fanciful novel about a man, a lifeboat and a tiger, and a zebra, and an orangutan, and a hyena, and lots of meerkats.

What would happen if you put a Polar bear and a husky together? Probably not always what's depicted in this slideshow -- but that fact that it did this once is amazing enough for me.

The photos were taken by famed German wildlife photographer Norbert Rosing, who once spent three years photographing Yellowstone National Park. He has worked since 1988 on capturing the essence of the Polar bear in photographs, and his photos from the ongoing project have been published in several magazines worldwide, including National Geographic.

In this slide show, part of a story for American Public Radio's "Speaking of Faith," Stuart Brown, a physician and clinical researcher who founded the National Institute for Play (really, there is such a place) describes Rosing's striking images of a wild polar bear playing with sled dogs in the wilds of Canada's Hudson Bay.

(Click the arrow at the bottom left of the video image to make it work, or, if you prefer, to make it play.)

* * *

Tonight, at the Mount Washington Tavern, BARCS (Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter) will hold its first Celebrity Guest Bartending Fundraiser, from 6 p.m. until closing time. Celebrities pourers will include Duff Goldman and Mary Alice Yeskey from the Food Network's Ace of Cakes, Maynard from "The Ed Norris Show" on WHFS, Justin Berk, Denise Dory and Jamie Costello from WMAR, Patrice Harris from Fox 45 and Joy Freeman from Baltimore Dog Magazine.

Posted by John Woestendiek at 9:42 AM | | Comments (2)
        

Comments

This is fascinating. I love polar bears and one of the main reasons is their sense of play and curiosity. Thank you for sharing. I'm going to post a comment and link on my blog (www.polarbearnews.com) and my site (www.squidoo.com/polarbearaware) to this article and slide show. Thank you for sharing this! Bear hugs, Frankie Kangas

This really is amazing. You were not lying.

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About this blog
Jill Rosen is a reporter at The Baltimore Sun. During her nearly 20 years in journalism, she has covered news and features — including a surprising number of stories that involved animals. There were the dog Christmas carolers in State College, Pa. There were the hounds who toured with a production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The story of a preschool teacher at Baltimore’s Father Kolbe School who had to replace her class guinea pig, who died over the winter holiday. A harrowing tale of what it was like to make homemade pet food ...

Though her clean freak of a mother refused to allow her to get a dog, she has had a number of pets through the years, including goldfish named Bob and Fingle, a beta fish named Ichabod, a wild rat terrier named Wendel, who she shared with a roommate, and, currently, sweet, sweet kitties named Leo Sesame and Milo Pumpkin. She, Leo and Pumpkin live in Baltimore.
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