Photo by Photo Submitted
SETTLING IN – The two orphaned black bear cubs shipped to the Calgary Zoo this past summer have been removed from quarantine and introduced to Manuka, a three-year-old female black bear with a rare white colour. Photo courtesy CALGARY ZOO
The orphaned Whitehorse bear cubs sent to the Calgary Zoo last summer have been introduced to the facility’s other black bear, Manuka.
The orphaned Whitehorse bear cubs sent to the Calgary Zoo last summer have been introduced to the facility’s other black bear, Manuka.
“This is such a positive story for us, as we were able to become the new home for two orphaned cubs and at the same time, provide company for our lone black bear,” zoo curator Mike Teller said today in a news release.
“Young bears are very social, and this will be very enriching for all of the bears.”
The trio is settling into their new blended family in the black-bear habitat in the Canadian Wilds area of the zoo.
The siblings spent some time in quarantine at the Animal Health Centre before becoming acquainted with three-year-old Manuka, a white black bear.
The brother and sister were orphaned in mid-July.
They’d been spotted with their mother along Hamilton Boulevard in Whitehorse, eating dandelions and foraging for natural foods, but she later discovered unsecured garbage and compost bins in the Copper Ridge neighbourhood.
Conservation officers relocated the family across the Yukon River.
About two weeks later, the mother bear was again going through garbage bins in Copper Ridge.
She was shot by conservation officers, as she had become a “problem bear.”
The cubs lived temporarily in a stock trailer at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve while Environment Yukon arranged for a permanent home for them.
Once it was announced the bears would be heading to Calgary, zoo spokeswoman Trish Exton-Parder said introducing the bruins to Manuka would take time.
It may first involve the animals first meeting nose-to-nose, with one in a back area and another in the front.
“You want the animal to understand the new habitat, to understand the animals around them and the smells, and you just take that a step at a time,” Exton-Parder said in August.
In their new home in Canadian Wilds area, the bears will become ambassadors, educating zoo visitors on how to allow bears to remain wild animals, the zoo said in its release.
Now the bears are settling into hibernation for the winter, so they’re not often visible.
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Comments (3)
Up 12 Down 11
June Jackson on Nov 4, 2014 at 4:30 pm
I'm so happy we had our hands on something helpless against a rifle and didn't kill it.
Also delighted for these little bears.. i'd like to get out to Calgary zoo and see them sometime.
Up 17 Down 14
Mark Smith on Nov 4, 2014 at 3:29 pm
These bears should be reintroduced to the Yukon. They could feed along our roadways from spring to fall, be enjoyed by tourists and locals and then someone from the Fish and Game Association could shoot them because why fix something that is working.
PS, there is a little sarcasm in the comment above.
Up 11 Down 5
Louisa Gee on Nov 4, 2014 at 3:27 pm
So glad to see they're bonding with the blonde black bear there. I visited the Calgary Zoo in July and that bear came bounding down the hill to see us...it probably was quite lonely and now welcomes some cuddle buddies for the winter hibernation.