Barker backs Manitoba couple’s plan to rehab orphaned bear cubs
Former television game show host and animal rights advocate Bob Barker is providing US$50,000 to a Manitoba couple who want to build the province’s first black bear cub rehabilitation centre.
The former star of The Price Is Right is extending money from his foundation to Judy and Roger Stearns, who plan to set up the centre on their property north of Stonewall, about 40 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
Judy Stearns says she and her husband, along with volunteers, hope to take in orphaned cubs and care for the animals until they reach about 36 kilograms and are ready for release into the wild.
Stearns says thanks to Barker’s generous contribution, along with assistance from Zoocheck Canada, the couple’s dream is closer to reality.
“My husband and I were going to be building the facility with our own funds,” Stearns said Wednesday. “Now it can be that much larger and more complex.”
Stearns has been involved with orphaned cub care for years. She said the couple felt inspired to pursue better ways of looking after young bears instead of putting them in zoos or euthanizing them, so she and her husband approached Zoocheck in 2012 for information and advice.
“Nothing has really happened or progressed in the last three years, so we said, ‘We have this property, the time and the interest, why not just do it ourselves?”’
Julie Woodyer, Zoocheck Canada’s campaigns director, said the organization contracted John Beecham, a biologist and renowned bear rehabilitation expert in Idaho, to help design the centre and develop protocols to support the animals’ needs and ensure public safety.
Beecham and Zoocheck met with the Stearns and provincial officials, checked the couple’s property and reviewed what the facility would look like. The Stearns had already started accumulating materials for the job and that’s when the organization decided to get behind them and contacted Barker.