A busy week.

It has been a whirlwind week here at the shelter. Just last night at around 3am we picked up another cub. It's mother was hit by a car and killed and 3 days later some loggers found the corpse at the side of the logging road, with the cub sitting on it, still trying to nurse of the dead body. The sight was so heart-wrenching that the loggers were in tears when they made the call to us, to ask if we could help. The little bear came in weighing only 7.6lbs, around 10lbs underweight of a healthy bear at this age.

Speaking of healthy bears yesterday we moved the three little cubs up to the outside enclosure. Norman met Jo and Fisher and I he is so happy to have some friends. In the outside enclosure they have much more room to run around and climb. They have trees to explore and are exposed to the elements and to other wildlife. This will help them learn more about the environment they will be released into next year and will give them a much better chance at survival.

Norman (top), Fisher (left) and Jo (right) exploring their new enclosure

Earlier on in the week we received a small gosling, named Ninja, after he tried to walk right into someone's fire pit all by himself. After it was determined there were no other geese around he was sent to us. He is pretty darn cute. We don't have any other goslings here and he was getting pretty lonely so in the meantime I put a small wind up Easter chick toy into his cage and he started following it around when I wound it up! Adorable. We then received 8 ducklings after their mum got hit by a lawnmower and we put Ninja in with them and he seems to have adopted all of them, which is great. Not to mention super cute when we walked in the next morning and saw all the ducklings cuddled up against Ninja. 

Ninja and part of his new flock

Finally we received a call just under a week ago about a grizzly bear in Fernie, right in the south of BC on the Alberta border. This shelter is the only place in the entire world licensed to rehab Grizzly bears, and since the pilot project started they have successfully raised and released 11 Grizzly bears. 

The cub is around 16 months old and severely malnourished. It is theorised that he has been alone since last Autumn, that he hibernated alone after his mother was killed last year. The shelter owners drove for 2 and a half days to pick him up and found that he was all skin and bone. From a distance he looks better but his fur is still very fluffy so it is deceiving. When he arrived at the shelter we put him on the scale and found he weighed a measly 48lbs. Around 100lbs underweight of a healthy Grizzly for this time of year.

'Little Foot' the Grizzly bear

This is huge for the shelter and global news instantly contacted saying they wanted to run a story so we have been filming and taking pictures constantly and sending them copies. Footage that I filmed of his arrival even appeared on National news!

He appears to be doing well and is eating lots. He will hopefully continue to put on weight here and be released later in August.