The Great Battle of Bear Ridge

30.8.2026 – Story and Photos by Molly Merrow

Here I present a silly little story about orphaned black bear sisters who came to the Cincinnati Zoo last fall. They are growing stronger and more clever, and love to play with each other.

Their favorite activity is carrying on great naval battles in the pool, but they do like all kinds of play.

Black Bear sisters Juniper and Hazel were orphaned at the age of 7 months in the wilds of Montana. The girls were taken in by Montana Fish. Wildlife and Parks, who contacted the Cincinnati Zoo, which had just finished up construction of a new North American habitat, perfect for these twin sisters. Soon the cubs were on their way, thanks to shipping by DHL, and they found a new home in the historic Cincinnati Zoo.

Juniper and Hazel arrived about 11 months ago at the Cincinnati Zoo, and are about 16 months old now, a perfectly playful and silly age.

They are both Black Bears, but are easy to tell apart because Hazel is a rich reddish brown, while Juniper is pure ebony black. Black Bears do come in many colors besides black.

Hazel is the ringleader, mostly in charge, but Juniper is happy to come along and mix it up whenever Hazel is in a playful mood, and because they are cubs still, they do a lot of playing and chasing.

The new habitat, called Bear Ridge, is built upon Bear Hill, where the habitats for Andean, Black and Polar bears stood just a few years ago. Bear Ridge is long and sloping, with climbing structures at the top, and a waterfall and pool at the bottom, plus lots of rocks and trees and bushes. A few steps from the black bears’ domain is the new sea otter habitat.

The energetic cubs spend all day running up and down that hill, usually chasing each other.

We visited in late August, near closing time on a perfect summer afternoon. As we came around the corner to peer into the bears’ pool area, it was obvious a great battle was about to begin, and the bears were squaring off.

Soon, the scene was filled with splashing, dunking, biting, challenging, running away, and then back again to start all over. The sisters were having a delightful time.

Play like this isn’t just play for the young cubs. It is practice for the challenges they would normally face, living in the wild with other bears and dangerous creatures. These girls will never have to use these skills to ward off real attacks, but they do it anyway, and have great fun.

While Hazel decides when to have these little battles, Juniper is happy to play the part of the attacker, grabbing her sister’s ear between her teeth, but careful to not cause any real harm. Then Juniper runs away, while Hazel relaxes in the pool, sometimes nonchalantly playing with a toy, ready for the next little battle. It is usually Hazel who is the obvious winner of these battles, as Juniper retreats.

The cubs also enjoy facing off on the climbing structure, or “tree” at the top of the habitat. Hazel climbs the highest, and Juniper challenges her as “king of the hill” but it is always Hazel who is king, or queen in this scene.

In between they chase each other up and down the habitat. They wear each other out, and they will curl up together in the den tonight, and sleep soundly.

These crazy summer days will soon be coming to an end, as the cubs will put on weight for the winter, and will spend some time in natural torpor, which is the slowing down of metabolism to conserve energy during the bitter cold of the winter months.

But until winter comes, we still have many more weeks of silly battles with the adorable Black Bear cubs.

Molly Merrow