SEATTLE — Friendship can look like a lot of things. At the Woodland Park Zoo, it looks like sharing some lettuce.
"Yeah they were fast friends pretty much from the start,” said animal keeper Karen McRae, who feeds the Zoo’s two best friends big heads of romaine every morning around 9 a.m.
The friends are Juniper, a coastal brown bear cub from Alaska, and Fern, a grizzly cub from Montana. Together — they are "Ferniper." And together is what these orphaned cubs prefer.
"They're never more than a few feet away from each other. They do everything together,” said McRae, who takes care of the bears, and knows their personalities.
Like all good friends, they complement one another.
“Juniper's the comic relief, and Fern is the brains of the operation,” McRae said. “[With Fern,] you see the wheels turning, she's a little more cautious, a little more reserved. And Juniper's like jumping on top of her trying to wrestle her."
Favorite foods? Also complementary. Juniper loves fruits and veggies, and Fern is more into protein. She especially likes mixed nuts.
"They're very opposite bears but they get along so perfectly,” said McRae who adds that the two need that companionship, since they are both orphans, and bears in the wild rely on their mothers for socialization.
This furry friendship has many fans on social media and at the zoo. Keepers say the observation areas where Fern and Juniper live, play, and swim are always packed with folks just soaking in all the love.
These bear besties won't be cubs long — they just celebrated their first birthday with ice cakes, and a hand painted birthday card from zoo staff. But as they grow, so do those warm fuzzy feelings.
"These two rescued brown bears are just taking the Pacific Northwest by storm,” said WPZ public relations specialist Craig Newberry. “Everyone's just fallen in love with them and we are just happy that everyone’s as smitten with them as we are at the zoo.”
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