Campers in the Los Padres National Forest were out hiking last month when they made a heartbreaking discovery: They heard an animal crying and found a tiny black bear on the trail, alone. His mother was nowhere to be found.
They scooped him up and carried him to a campground manager, who notified the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Wildlife biologists initially hoped the cub might be reunited with his mother. They returned him to the forest trail and left him overnight, but the mother didn’t come back.
That’s when the cub was brought to the San Diego Humane Society’s Ramona Wildlife Center to be nursed back to health. Staff said the cub, thought to be 2 or 3 months old when he arrived, was extremely fragile since he had gone days without eating, calling his condition “touch and go.”
Over the past month in Ramona, though, he’s gained weight and become more active, even starting to climb little branches and logs brought into his enclosure.
Staff typically don’t name the wild animals at the center but have taken to calling him “Baby Bear,” said Autumn Welch, the center’s wildlife operations manager.
Initially, he was given formula — he balked at a bottle so he laps it up from a bowl. Now that he’s over 10 pounds, he’s being fed some dried pellets and fruit, as well as beetles and mealworms, and grass and leaves.
The goal is to have him remain as wild as possible with the hope that eventually he will be released. When care workers interact with the cub, they don a bear mask and fur coat that smells like black bears, which is stored with bedding provided by the Lions, Tigers and Bears sanctuary in Alpine. That way, Welch said, “we also smell like the bears in addition to looking as best as we can like a bear.”
During enrichment sessions that can last 60 to 90 minutes a day, they mimic maternal behaviors the cub would otherwise miss. “We’re obviously not his mom, but we try our best to have him look at us as bears and not humans to avoid that early imprinting,” she said.
They also use teddy bears to play and roughhouse as a sibling would.
“He does some playful grabbing. He will grab out, bite and wrestle,” she said. “These stuffed animals really do help.”
When he naps, the cub often holds onto a teddy bear, with the stuffed animal serving as sort of a “surrogate mom,” Welch said.
Officials expect the cub likely will need to remain in care for up to a year. At some point he will be put into an outdoor enclosure by himself. If another black bear cub comes into a rehab center, state officials will consider housing it at Ramona so the two orphans can pair up.
State officials say this is the fourth young cub in the past five years that’s been brought in to be rehabilitated.
“He’s the youngest and smallest, so it’s been amazing just watching him grow and learn over the past month,” Welch said.
