Tag Archives: Orphaned Cubs

Black Bear Cub

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Black Bear Cub

This week I’m hopping across the country to post about a rescued black bear cub in Pennsylvania. One of the many perks of owning a lodge is that I have the opportunity to meet interesting people from around the world, and many of our guests become our friends. A few years ago, Tony and Karin Ross from Pennsylvania joined us for a summer trip, and they have returned to our lodge every year since then. We’ve gotten to know the Rosses well, and we stay in touch throughout the year. Both Tony and Karin work with animals, and Tony is the Northcentral Regional Wildlife Management Supervisor with the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Luckily for all of us, one of Tony’s hobbies is wildlife photography, and as you can see from the photos in this post, he is very good at it.

This spring, Karin e-mailed and said, “Nothing beats your husband bringing home a bear ub!” She went on to tell me that the Pennsylvania Regional Game Commission office received a phone call from a man who said a small cub was sitting at the bottom of a steep rock outcrop next to a stream near his cabin. The cub appeared to be alone, either separated or abandoned by his mother, and the little guy was crying. Tony and his crew drove out to the area where the man had seen the cub, and the man told them that the cub recently had crossed the fast-flowing creek and ran into the forest. A few moments later, one of Tony’s associates noticed something moving in the woods, and when Tony walked into the forest, the cub ran towards him. The cub stopped six-feet from Tony, sat on a log, and looked up at him. Tony tried to kneel down beside the cub to catch it, but the cub warily moved under some bushes.

Since Tony had three people with him, they slowly circled the cub and caught him with a net. They then took the cub back to their office, dried him off, and put him in a pet carrier with a warm blanket. That night, Tony took the 7-lb. cub home, and he and Karin fed him with a syringe filled with sweetened condensed milk mixed with water. The cub consumed four 12-cc syringes over the next 12 hours.

After catching the cub, Tony and his crew set a trap to try to catch the cub’s mother, but they were unsuccessful, so Tony did the next best thing. He released the cub to a black bear sow who had three cubs of her own. I was fascinated that a black bear sow with three cubs would adopt another cub, and how did the biologists introduce the cub to its new family? I’m used to brown bears, and a brown bear mother with three cubs has her paws full. That’s a large family for a brown bear, and it is unlikely she would willingly feed a fourth cub that wasn’t her own. Tony told me that it is fairly common for a black bear mother to have four cubs; some black bear sows have six cubs. He said they have a list of potential foster mothers for these types of situations. The foster mothers are radio-collared females that already have cubs of their own. When biologists need to place a cub, they locate one of their radio-collared sows, and if they feel she can handle another cub, they follow her until she trees her cubs. They then run to the tree, roll the foster cub in the dirt, and send it up the same tree where its foster siblings are. All the while they are doing this, they have to keep track of the mother to make sure she keeps her distance. Once the foster cub is up the tree, the biologists quickly leave the area and hope for the best.Little Tony with ear tags with new sibling no ear tags

Before a foster cub is released, he is ear tagged, and you can see the ear tag on the foster cub in the photo. Tony said the release of this cub went according to plan, and he said he and his colleagues were happy to see the foster cub climb on and over his new siblings, picking up their odor and making it more likely his new mother would accept him.

Tony told me that each year the Pennsylvania Game Commission places orphaned cubs with foster moms. Sometimes a cub’s mother is hit and killed by a vehicle, and sometimes, cubs are just abandoned by their mothers for some reason. Worst of all, people occasionally take cute little cubs from the field and try to keep them, but when they become a handful (and that doesn’t take long), people contact the game commission for help. Tony and his colleagues do their best to place each orphaned cub with a foster mother, and while they don’t have the resources to follow each cub, they know that many of these tagged cubs have grown into adults, so the placements were obviously successful.

I was fascinated by Tony and Karin’s encounter with the black bear cub, and I was reminded how much black bears differ from brown bears. Tony and his fellow biologists with the Pennsylvania Game Commission work hard to ensure every orphaned cub is placed with a new mother and has a chance to survive until adulthood. Brown bear sows sometimes adopt cubs, but I believe it is a rare occurrence.

I find it interesting that any wild animal would adopt a baby that isn’t its own. Please leave a comment if you have information or stories about wild animals adopting “foster children.” Also, don’t hesitate to ask Tony a question; I’ll be sure he gets it.

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For more information on the Pennsylvania Game Commission, their biologists, and their research projects, go to www.pgc.pa.gov. I checked out this website, and it is full of information. Spend some time reading about the ongoing research projects of the game commission; I found it extremely interesting.

 

 

 

 

Update on Orphaned Cubs

Kodiak Bear, Kodiak Wildlife, , , , , , , , , ,

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I wrote a post a year ago about three orphaned cubs that entered our lives when a resident hunter killed their mother. Last spring, my husband, Mike Munsey watched a hunter shoot a bear near a den, but Mike didn’t know it was a sow with cubs until several days later when one of our guides saw a newborn cub peer out of the den. It is illegal to shoot a sow with cubs, but the hunter was apparently unaware the bear he shot had cubs. Mike called Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Nate Svoboda and asked for permission to rescue the tiny cubs from their den. The helpless newborn cubs had been without food and water for several days, and Nate didn’t think they would survive, but he gave Mike permission to attempt a rescue.

There is an abundance of bears in zoos across the country. Bears live a long time, and they eat a lot of food, so they are expensive to maintain. Not many zoos are looking for bears, and unless The Department of Fish and Game has a specific request from a zoo with a suitable bear-habitat exhibit, they cannot rescue bears from the wilderness, even if they know the bears won’t survive on their own. When Mike called Nate, he expected to be told to let nature take its course, and he was pleasantly surprised when Nate gave the go-ahead for the rescue.

Mike radioed our guide Harry Dodge and Harry, another guide, and one of our hunters climbed to the den and captured the three cubs. The cubs were caked with mud, dehydrated, and hungry. The guys each put a cub in his backpack and hiked down to the beach. From there, the cubs were brought back to our lodge where they spent the night. The following day, Nate and a local pilot flew out to our lodge, put the cubs in a big cage, and flew them back to Kodiak. From there, they were flown to the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage where they were nursed back to health.

The cubs stayed at the Alaska Zoo for several months, and we watched frequent videos of them on the nightly news as they continued to grow. The videos showed the cubs wrestling and playing, and the sight of them looking healthy and playful always brought tears to my eyes.

This past fall, two of the cubs were moved to the Wildwood Zoo in Marshfield, Wisconsin. A few months later, the other cub was sent to the Toledo Zoo. The Wildwood Zoo had just completed a beautiful, large bear enclosure, so the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, and the two cubs were greeted as celebrities in Marshfield. The zoo held a contest to name the cubs, and the winning names were: Munsey and Boda. Munsey was of course named after Mike, and Boda was named after Nate Svoboda. Check out the Wildwood Zoo website to see photos of Munsey and Boda, and while you are there take a look at the beautiful Kodiak Bear Exhibit. The cub that went to the Toledo Zoo was named Dodge after Harry Dodge, the guide who helped rescue the cubs from the den. Mike, Nate, and Harry are all very proud that the cubs were named after them, and we are thrilled that the little guys (all three are males) are thriving.

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When those dirty little cubs were visitors at our lodge, the largest weighed only 12 lbs. The latest report we received on the cubs at the Wildwood Zoo is that they now weigh 175 lbs. I’ve heard several people comment that it’s sad they couldn’t be re-released into the wilderness, but that was never an option. Cubs learn from their mothers how to interact with other bears, avoid danger, procure food, and how to hibernate. These bears have lived in zoos nearly their entire lives, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game only sends bears to zoos with first-rate bear enclosures. These cubs now have the mission of teaching thousands of people about bears, about Kodiak, and about the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. I have no doubt that all three will do a good job.

The photo at the top of this post was taken last year when Nate was putting the cubs in the plane to fly them to Kodiak. The other photo in this post is of two unrelated one-year-old cubs and their mother. This photo was taken in August, so the cubs were a few months older than the orphan cubs.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers.  It didn’t occur to me when I wrote this update that I would be posting it on Mother’s Day.  I hope you will find it a story with a sad beginning but a happy ending.

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Orphaned Cubs

Kodiak Bear, Kodiak Wildlife, Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, , ,

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Three orphaned cubs unexpectedly entered our lives two weeks ago. You may remember in my post on Kodiak bears emerging from their dens in the spring, I mentioned that sows with newborn cubs are the last to emerge, and often the sow will leave and return to the den many times before she introduces her babies to the world. Unfortunately, this behavior was fatal for one sow this spring.

Let me make it clear that bear hunting on Kodiak is very tightly regulated by a limited-permit system. It is illegal to shoot a sow with cubs, but when hunters saw this sow alone outside her den they shot her, perhaps never realizing she had cubs in the den. The incident is being investigated by the Alaska State Troopers, and I won’t speculate on what may or may not have happened. That part of the story is out of our hands.

Our guides already suspected this bear was a sow with young cubs in the den, and after she was shot, they kept a close eye on the den. A few days later, Tim, one of our guides, saw tiny, furry heads peering out of the den. My husband, Mike, called the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Kodiak, and they gave us permission to rescue the cubs from the den. At that point, it had been five days since their mother died, and the biologists did not believe the cubs would survive.

Two of our guides climbed up to the den, caught the cubs, and carried them down the mountain in backpacks. They then transported the cubs back to our lodge for the night. The three brothers were dirty, terrified, and stressed, and they huddled under the bunk beds in our guides’ cabin. They drank some water, but I knew we were not getting enough nutrients into their little bodies. We later learned that the cubs each weighed about 12 pounds (5.5 kg), and they were dehydrated and malnourished.

The next morning, I stayed alone with the cubs, waiting nervously for Fish and Game to arrive to take them to Kodiak. I soon learned, though, that it was foggy in Kodiak, and all planes were grounded until the fog lifted. Every hour, I crept into the cabin and peered under the bed, making sure they were still moving and alert. They drank some water, but I finally decided that my attempts to feed them were causing them too much stress, and since the airplane ride undoubtedly would terrify them, I wanted them as calm as possible before they began the next leg of their ordeal.

At 3:00 in the afternoon, the floatplane touched down and glided to our dock. I raced to meet Fish and Game biologist Nate Svoboda and eagerly showed him where the bears were hiding. Nate was impressed the bears looked as good as they did, and he carefully placed them in a large kennel for the trip to Kodiak.

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Once in Kodiak, the cubs spent the night at Fish and Game and then took another plane ride to Anchorage, where the vets at the Alaska Zoo are now caring for them. A video recently released by the zoo shows the three brothers playing and cuddling. They are now clean and fluffy and appear to be very healthy. After spending several months in Anchorage, the cubs will board yet another plane. Two will go to a zoo in Wisconsin, and the third to another zoo.

I experienced a roller coaster of emotions during this drama: Anger, depression, excitement, worry, and fear among others, but as I watched the video from the Alaska Zoo and saw three, healthy, playful cubs, I finally allowed myself to smile and breathe a sigh of relief. The three bears will never know a life in the Kodiak wilderness, but they are alive, and their jobs now are to teach others about Kodiak bears. Maybe someday I will be able to visit them at their new homes.

View the video of the cubs.