Boundary History
We Wrestled Bears in our Living Room Part II
Jun 21, 2005, 05:05

This is the second part of the article highlighting the Kramer children memories of their years growing up on the first wild animal game farm in Idaho.

Reenie’s Memories:

Pat and Reenie (Kramer) Doolie

When we were growing up we all took care of the animals. Dad had international, national, state and local permits so he could buy and trade all kinds of animals. We got the African lion after Dad passed away. YJ’s meat market donated Sheba, a nine-month old lioness who loved kids.

We kept Sheba in a cage, but we would go out and play with her even when she was 150 pounds. She was real sweet and timid. She was afraid of anything different. One time Cliff’s son, Danny, build her a ramp in her cage. She would make a crying sound, or whine, and we had to go in with her to get her use to it. She would rather have the attention of people than food, even when we would bring her meat.

The cougars were not that way, though they were friendly, we had to be respectful of them because they were so strong. We would put our hands up to let them get our scent before we would pet them.

When my girls were little, the game farm had fox kits and the children packed them around. They had a lot of fun with them. The fox kits looked like a combination between kittens and puppies, but they smelled like skunks and the girls had to wash up after playing with them.

We had so many animals every spring because the game had babies. We would also take some of them down to the lake and let them play in the water. We took Jodi the bear down and tied her on a rope so she could play in the water, too. My mom would wake me up in the morning by bringing Jodi in to snuggle on my bed with me. Later, when I was a teacher at Naples School, I brought the cubs in and the children would hold them on their laps while they did their schoolwork.

Andrea and Dave Kramer

After Dad passed away, Mom, Dave, and I took care of the animals. I remember the elk. We could call them and the whole herd would come running. One year the herd numbered 18. We had a cow that kept getting out every day. She would be at the gate in the morning to get in for feeding and then be out again in the afternoon. Then we found out why she would get out when she arrived at the gate one morning with a calf. We thought she would stay in after that, but then she was out again. Then the next morning she was at the gate and she had another calf! We counted the elk and found she had had twins! After she brought both her calves in, she did not go out any more.

I had a pet deer named Sandy who I rescued from the lake when she was a fawn. Some stray dogs had chased her into the lake where she swam out about 50 yards. She was afraid to come in, so I swam out to get her and she grabbed onto my hair with her teeth and put her hooves on my shoulders. She was so tired she was panting. I swam her back to shore and, after that, she followed me everywhere!

One year my brothers and I took a badger to the High School homecoming game. Dad loved badgers and played with them a lot.

The cougars the Kramer children raised from cubs were very strong when they were full-grown and though they were still friendly still needed to be treated with respect, according to Reenie Kramer.

We also had a porcupine the girls named Porky and loved to play with. They would hold one end of a carrot in their mouth and let the porcupine eat from the other end until it got down to where its soft nose would rub against theirs and they loved it. They also loved to rub its stomach. Mom and I also called it Yule Gibbons.

Roland Hall became our wildlife veterinarian when he started practice here. He did a real good job.

Charlie’s memories:

I remember when I took Zipper, the elk, to the Cascade Mountains in Boise and filmed for the Wild Kingdom Show. They were shooting a wildlife series on elk. We took Zipper out over the crest of the Wild Mountain Range. We led her into a compound with oats and they had a bear in there. When the bear met the elk, the elk snorted. It was supposed look as though it was happening in the wild, but it was “staged.”

Cliff Kramer remembers taking Zipper, the elk, to play a part in the Wild Animal Kingdom TV series.

I also remember when I was going to college at the University of Idaho in Moscow. The Moscow High School team was the Moscow Bears and they wanted our pet bear for the mascot at the homecoming game.

We had twin cubs we raised that the Idaho Department of Fish and Game had brought to Dad. The Fish and Game Department had returned Buffy, the male, to the wild, but Jody, the female, was too tame to be able to fend for herself. We had a big cage we put her in on a trailer and made the cage into a float. We kept her in the Moscow City Jail for the weekend. She was a real docile bear even though she was probably about 200 pounds at the time. She was happy to be there. She was good around people. Reenie used to swim with her in the lake.

Often when the fairs were held in Bonners Ferry and Sandpoint, the Sportsman Association took our animals in for people to see.

They had designed a building to include displays that looked like the animals’ natural habitat. It went over real well for a number of years. Leo Black, with the Fish and Game Department helped an awful lot on the Bonner County Fair and Dad, along with the local Sportsman Association, worked on the Boundary County Fair. Reenie would bring a wild animal as her entry in the Pet Show at the fair every year.

Now we do a lot of work with Ducks Unlimited, which is an organization that helps preserve the ducks and increase the population. We help by creating duck ponds and wildlife habitat and by preserving wetlands. They need to rest on their migration route to and from Canada. It is critical to ensure their survival. A couple years ago, we helped turn 800 acres of farmland by the Canadian Border into ponds and habitat for ducks and geese. We also turned the Thorman Farm, which included 500 acres, into wetlands for wildlife.

Growing up with the wild animals sure opened up our eyes to preserving this part of the country’s wildlife. It let us see how we can get along with them and still hunt and have our sports as well.

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