Orphaned bear cubs from Dryden, Ont., area find new temporary home

Three young black bear cubs from the Dryden area are now receiving round-the-clock care at a southern Ontario rehabilitation centre.

The cubs were separated from their mother when their den was accidentally disturbed by logging, said Mike McIntosh, who runs the Bear With Us Sanctuary for orphaned and injured bear cubs near Huntsville. 

"We're pretty sure that they're right around eight weeks old," said McIntosh, who has named them Oscar, Oliver and Ozzy.

Usually at this age, the cubs would still be in the den with their mother. The cubs' eyes are open, but they aren't very mobile yet, he said.

"They crawl around, they fall down, roll over, hit their heads. They can't hold their head up very steadily because, you know, they're still very, very small infants," McIntosh said.

The bear cubs are too young to eat solid food, so McIntosh said they are being bottle fed formula. 

"It's time consuming, but it's also stressful," he said. Their sensitive digestive systems are still developing, and if they don't adapt to the formula, they could have potentially fatal bouts of diarrhea.

The goal is to eventually release the bears back into the wild near where they were found, said McIntosh. They try to preserve the bear's natural fear of humans to make sure they're able to survive independently once released, he said.  

"We've released over 800 bears to the wild in Ontario since we started [the sanctuary] in the early '90s and these two will go back to the District of Dryden," he said. 

The cubs' mother is unlikely to return to look for them, said Martyn Obbard, an emeritus research scientist from the Ministry of Natural Resources. 

"At this time of year, the female strategy, given that she's a long-lived species, would be to abandon those cubs," said Obbard.

Black bears living in the boreal forest often dig their dens under tree roots or the trunks of fallen trees, he said. It's rare for people to come across black bear dens and winter snow can make them difficult to detect. 

"During my career, we would hear about situations like this almost every year, whether it was site prep or actual logging. And really there's nothing the operator can do about it," Obbard said. 

Few black bear cubs in the wild survive until adulthood, he said. Roughly half die in their first year. 

"Given what's happened to these cubs, it's a worthwhile effort for the sanctuary to try and rehabilitate them, and get them ready to be released as yearlings next year," said Obbard.