See the video for yourself at:
http://tinyurl.com/pdntwinkles
SEQUIM — Trying to make a drowsy 700-pound Kodiak grizzly bear wave its paw at you in the dead of winter is next to impossible.
They are supposed to be hibernating, after all.
But when one of Olympic Game Farm’s grizzlies — many of which are retired film or circus performers — gave a video-recording visitor a quick, cute, human-like wave a year ago in June, it became an overnight sensation last week on YouTube.
The seven-second clip of Twinkles, a 20-year-old female grizzly that was born and raised on the farm, went viral on the Internet, with more than 2.8 million views by Saturday night.
U.S. morning television talk shows, British TV and Internet news sites picked it up around the world.
It can be seen on YouTube.com at http://tinyurl.com/pdntwinkles or by going to YouTube and typing “waving bear” in the search field.
“It’s kind of crazy,” said Robert Beebe, president of the game farm at 423 Ward Road, on Friday.
It was Tuesday morning that Beebe and Jamie Pate, game farm tour manager, learned about the video when a French newspaper called them.
“They asked us if we knew about it, and we didn’t,” Pate said.
The television show “Inside Edition” called next.
“The first day, it looked like there were 350,000 hits on YouTube,” Pate said.
“The next morning, there were about 750,000, and then Thursday, there were more than a million.”
It aired on ABC TV’s “Good Morning America” and early Tuesday was posted at Yahoo.com and America Online and its news website, The Huffington Post.
More than 120 listings of the waving bear came up in a simple Google search.
Pate said she emailed the person who posted the video on YouTube, homefry815, but never got a reply.
“In my personal opinion,” Pate said, “people thought it was a fluke, but if they come here, they’ll find out it’s not.
“They’ll [the bears] do a lot of different things.”
With winter being the game farm’s slow months, she said, the video has not driven a marked increase in visitors their way.
One that did show up last week complained that the bears did not wave.
“You can’t come here expecting it because it’s not guaranteed,” said Pate, who has worked at the game farm for eight years.
“It’s just a matter of their excitement.
“If you come in the spring, they will be all over you.”
Armed with treats Friday morning, Beebe tried his best to entice Twinkles and several of the long-clawed, furry, cocoa-colored farm grizzlies to perform tricks.
He enticed a couple to sit up, smile or rock a little bit.
But none gave a full excited wave like the one Twinkles delivered for a car of laughing, delighted visitors who recorded and posted it online.
Come around spring or summer, Beebe agreed, the show goes on.
Then the bears, all 12 of them, go wild with their antics, just for a slice of wheat bread tossed their way.
“People get excited when bears do something funny, and the bears get excited in return,” he said.
“They mimic humans because they are getting something in return.
“It’s a human connection. They’re very intelligent, and they have their own schticks.”
The animals are trained to perform tricks through positive reinforcement, not by force, Beebe said.
“It’s one of the things my grandfather took to heart,” Beebe said of game farm founder Lloyd Beebe, who died at the age of 94 in January at his home overlooking the farm two days before his wife, Catherine, died at the age of 88.
“He always said it was a natural thing and not to force them,” Beebe said.
One of the bears at the farm grabs its toes and rocks backwards.
Others stand up and wave, while another shows its teeth like a smile.
The Olympic Game Farm originally was a filming location for Walt Disney in the early 1950s.
It is open in the winter for driving tours every day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Admission is $12 for adults 15 and older and $11 for children 6 to 14 and seniors 55 and older. Children 5 and younger are admitted free.
For more information, phone 360-683-4295 or visit www.olygamefarm.com.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
