Black bear orphans get help returning to wild

[Kadie]

Black bear orphans get help returning to wild
Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, February 14, 2011



Shasta, now recovered, was nearly bald and severely underweight when he was rescued.
Photo: Lacy Atkins / The Chronicle


(02-14) 04:00 PST Lassen National Forest - --

The 90-pound black bear cub had been drugged, but he still managed to hiss angrily as he was placed inside the man-made den.

"Oh yeah, he's mad at me," said Marc Kenyon, the statewide bear coordinator for the California Department of Fish and Game. "That's exactly what we want."

The yearling, named Shasta, was the fifth orphaned California black bear cub to be rehabilitated in the past year and returned to the wild. The trick, Kenyon said, is not to show the animals affection or allow them to bond in any way with humans.

"Not that I want him to have negative experiences, but I want him to have negative associations with humans," Kenyon said after the young bear was safely inside the den. "He'll probably get out and look around when he wakes up, just to check out his surroundings, but then we hope he climbs back in and sleeps until the spring."

California began a bear cub rehabilitation program in 2000 and has since returned 35 orphaned cubs to the wild. Several other cubs were sent to zoos, because they had bonded with humans and wildlife experts determined that they were unfit to be set free.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/13/MNG21HIKUR.DTL#ixzz1EA2xNAhG

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[xchrom]

2. recommend

[leftstreet]

3. awww

K&R

[MiniMe]

4. If you like black bears, check out Lily and Hope

http://www.bear.org/livecams/lily-hope-cam.html

Lily had 2 new cubs this year, and she has a 1 year old cub (Hope), so all 4 of them are in the den together, and a live cam is on them 24/7. They are in Minnesota, and they are wild bears.

[frebrd]

5. K&R n/t