On March 9th we got a call at the shelter asking if we had room for 3 bear cubs. Black bear cubs are all born at the end of January or beginning of February which would have made these cubs around a month old. Of course the answer was an immediate yes, but we weren't quite expecting what followed. We were asked if along with the cubs we could take their 275lb mother! That was a first for the shelter.
It turns out that the den of the bears had been disturbed and woken the mother bear up. It was close to a residential area and could have been dangerous. The conservation officer wanted to try and save all the bears so asked if we could take them all. We couldn't turn them down.
However as it turned out tranquilising a fully grown, adult bear was more difficult than expected. The CO managed to eventually knock her out, only she was in a tree at the time and got stuck. They had to fell the tree in the end and then we picked up the bears and drove them back to the shelter.
Because of the whole ordeal of getting mum out of the tree we would have to assess for injuries, so the cubs had to be separated for a while. Since they were so young and they can't go more than 10 hours without milk this meant that for one evening we had to bottle feed. Cue me, sitting at the kitchen table at 1am, with a tiny 3lb cub sitting on my lap trying to get it to drink milk from a little bottle. I am not hesitating when I say it was the most adorable sight I have ever seen. I placed the cub on the ground in order to reheat the milk and I kid you not the cub stumbled around in the cutest way ever. They could barely hold themselves up at this age and I nearly melted at the sight. We then had to repeat this process again at 6am before it was established that mum was fine and they could all be transported up to our grizzly enclosure where hopefully they would fall back asleep for a while.
In order to protect the cubs from the harsh cold wind we carried them up after mum had been placed in the den (still tranquilised). I then rubbed the cub I had all over the mother's fur in order to cover up the human smell. We also rubbed vapor rub on the mother bears nose to further disguise the human scent. Finally we helped the cubs latch onto their mum so they could nurse and the happy sounds they made whilst drinking I don't think I will ever forget. Again, I was standing in a den with an adult bear and her three cubs. It was quite surreal to say the least!
Thankfully the bears stayed in the den and in hibernation for a few more weeks before we saw any activity. It wasn't long after that the CO's returned and we could transport them back home. An area was found where they would be away from people and hopefully undisturbed. Before leaving we once again weighed the cubs and checked over the mum. All bears were alive and well and the cubs had even gained weight. A trap was set right outside the artificial den in our enclosure and we didn't have to wait long before mum came out and we were ready to go.
They were released a few weeks ago with ear tags and a radio collar and we can do no more now other than hope that they will make it.
I feel so extremely grateful to have been part of something this incredible. We saved the lives of an entire family of bears, and even though I left covered with scratches (bear cubs have wicked sharp claws) it was all worth it in the end.
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