Animals everywhere

When they said that spring time at a wildlife shelter can get pretty busy, they really weren't kidding.

Our bear cub count is now up to six. Norman, Jo and Fisher have been joined by Artio, a black and brown cub from just down the road, who was found wandering around on a neighbour's driveway all alone. Maya, an extremely small and very quiet cub from Vanderhoof and a still unnamed male cub from Prince George. Feeding time is more than a bit chaotic right now as they are all on milk and will often try to steal milk from another bears bowl leading to a few scuffles each night.

Artio

Maya

We also got the first moose of the season in a few days ago from Prince George. She is very small, and at most only two or three days old. Conservation officers found her drowning in a ditch and we picked her up. She is drinking milk well and seems quite alert. However we discovered a large lump on her right side during our initial check up. Upon further inspection by a vet, we learnt that she has a very large abdominal hernia. It doesn't seem to be causing her any discomfort and the hole is quite large so the vet doesn't think she is at risk of any pinching of the guts. Surgery is an option, however there are risks. Moose are already extremely sensitive to sedation and with this moose being so young surgery isn't a guarantee of survival. The vet suggested that we could try to push the lump back in and wrap a tight bandage around her middle to hold it and hope that it heals by itself. In the meantime i'm having a great time bottle feeding, she needs to be fed every three hours, so we share the job between the three volunteers to ensure we at least get some sleep.

Just yesterday we picked up our first deer as well. A concerned neighbour had been watching it all afternoon and when no mum came back to it we were called to investigate. The deer is around 2 days old, very weak and has an infection in the right eye. He has been put on the same feeding schedule as the moose and we administered eye drops to try and clear the infection.

We also packed up five more bears to be released and as I write this the shelter owners are continuing their drive right to the BC/America border to release one of them. All the bears we rehab are released into the same region from where they came. There hasn't been much study into the genetics of black bears and we don't want to mix gene pools to be on the safe side. This does mean however that we have to drive thousands of miles each spring to take them back. In just a few weeks time I will be going to the Queen Charlotte islands to release our last bear from last year, Zippy. That is a five hour drive, followed by a seven hour ferry and another hour drive to reach.

What a truck, loaded with 5 bears, looks like

The time we saved a whole family of bears.

So a while ago something absolutely incredible happened here at the shelter. I put off posting about it because I was afraid that if something went wrong or if it didn't all go according to plan I would have to make a very sad follow up post. However now that it's all over and everything turned out ok I think I can share the experience.

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.