While visiting Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge, you are sure to hear some crazy stories, especially about the crowd’s favorite, Bam Bam.
Bam Bam is our resident Grizzly Bear here at TCWR. He was rescued from someone in Oklahoma. This man had a barn in his backyard. This barn consisted of 8 cages with 9 tigers and 2 bears sharing those cages! We were able to go and rescue Bam Bam and Thunder, the two bears when the man lost his land and ownership of the animals. Upon arrival, we saw that the tigers were already gone, so we truly don’t know what happened to them. But there sat Bam Bam and Thunder awaiting our arrival.
Bam Bam has grown to be one of the most loved animals we have here at TCWR. He is so popular that even Eureka Springs has named their own special holiday after him, Bam Bam Day. We celebrate this holiday every first Sunday in November.
When visiting TCWR, you might get the chance to witness 
Bam Bam being his goofy self. He loves playing with his favorite toy, a tan-colored ball with very large holes in the sides. He grabs this toy and places it upon his head like a helmet, we call it his space helmet! Bam Bam sometimes is even seen taking showers in his waterfall or drowning his toys in his pool! Most of his toys float, so when he goes to drown his toys in his pool, they pop right back up. When this happens, you can sometimes see him grab the toy, lift it in the air and drink the water that is flowing out of it like a fountain!
Bam Bam also loves his snacks! His favorite snack of all time is Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches. Don’t worry, we make him quite a few sandwiches every now and then. He also loves eating Popcorn and Fig Newtons. 
Even though we do spoil him quite a bit, we also have him work for his food by scatter-feeding. This way he is able to hunt for his own food! We do this mostly with his produce: apples, bananas, oranges, sweet potatoes, and even coconuts. When we give him a coconut, it’s whole, so he has to crack it open himself to get the white coco-nutty goodness! To open up the coconut, he tries to crack it by tapping it on his head! That never seems to work, so he then stomps on it, making it look like he is giving that coconut CPR!
Next time you are visiting TCWR, make sure you stop to say hello to Bam Bam! Make sure to look down at his building if he isn’t up in his habitat! Don’t worry he loves the attention; he will even make sure someone is watching him do all these crazy things he loves to do!
