Thursday, August 17th, 2017
Bear trainers love working with their big, furry friends
By Ed Gebert
Photo by Ed Gebert/The Daily Standard
Johnny Welde works with Lucy, a female brown bear, to display an American flag at a show during Wednesday's Kids' Day at the Mercer County Fair. The Welde family has had bears for 91 years, keeping them at a Florida ranch. During the summer, the Weldes take a few bears north to do educational shows. The Bearadise Ranch bears have been performing at the Mercer County Fair all week with two shows scheduled for today.
CELINA - Monica Welde has pets just like many other people do, but instead of dogs or cats, she has bears.
Welde, with help from her 27-year-old son, Johnny Welde, owns and operates The Bears of Bearadise Ranch of Florida, and she's brought her oversized furry friends to the Mercer County Fair. The bears have been performing twice each day and three times on weekends. The Weldes use the show to give people a closer look at the animals they love.
"The bears actually have been in my husband's family for 91 years," she said.
Johnny Welde's great-grandfather had run away from his home in Norway to join the circus and started his first trained bear act in 1948, Monica Welde said. He made his debut with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus during the 1947-1948 seasons.
Eventually, he settled with his wife and daughter in Tampa, Florida, and worked with his bears in nightclubs and theme parks, she said. The bears also had acting stints, making appearances in movies and television shows.
The Weldes now have settled with their bears in Myakka City, Florida, just south of Tampa. The shows presented at this year's Mercer County Fair featured just six of the Weldes' 14 bears. Each of the six is a member of a different subspecies of brown bears, such as Syrian brown, grizzly and European brown, Welde said.
"The Bears of Bearadise Ranch is an educational show," she said. "We educate people on bears and what is happening to them in the wild."
Welde said she and her family take in bears that need homes. The ranch is open October-June. They then travel north during the summer months to show at state and county fairs as a fundraiser for the ranch.
"People like to learn about them. We have a very good turnout at the shows," she said. "They love learning and seeing the beautiful animals and the relationship they share with us. And the intelligence. Bears are very intelligent animals."
The bleachers set up near the rear of the grandstands fill up quickly as children, parents and grandparents jostle to get a look at these huge, gentle creatures. The Weldes make it obvious to the crowd that the bears are not fearsome creatures but loved family members.
"They get excited to do a show," Welde said about the bears. "They know when it's showtime. They know they're going to do their behaviors, get treats, get affection. They thrive on the daily physical contact we have with them - the loving, the petting, the communication. That's all important to them mentally and physically, part of their enrichment as well."
During Kids' Day on Wednesday, the first show ended with a female bear, Lucy, crawling into a small pool, or "Bear Jacuzzi" as Welde refers to it.
"Our bears have a little pool to swim in. People enjoy watching that. That's a show in itself," she said. "People get to watch the bears splash and have a good time like that."
Traveling with six bears in tow may sound like a lot of work. Tearing down in one town and then setting up in another can be a trial for the humans, but Welde said it's great for the bears.
"The bears love to go for a ride for a little and see a different environment," she said.
All of the bears at Bearadise Ranch began life being raised by humans. None came from the wild. Welde said all the bears may come to the ranch from humans, but they come from different situations. The Weldes are licensed to own bears and to take bears in for rehabilitation.
"Sometimes if the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) would shut down a facility, they can offer us to take in the bears. We've taken in several bears for that reason," she said.
The bears at the ranch range in ages from 1 to older than 20, Welde said. The males can approach 1,000 pounds and the females are usually much smaller. She encouraged the public to visit her website, bearadiseranch.com.
"People love it. They love seeing animals healthy, happy and living in a loving environment," she said. "We have a wonderful facility for our bears."
"The Bears of Bearadise Ranch" will present two shows for today's closing day at the fair, at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Fair schedule:
• 6 p.m. - martial arts demonstration
• 6:30 p.m. - New Outlook
• 7 p.m. - high school band show
• 8 p.m. - New Outlook; DJ Fuzz
• 9 p.m. - removal of junior fair projects allowed
