Banff bathroom bears doing well in new temporary home
Three black bear cubs found inside a Banff National Park restroom in April are doing well in their new temporary home in Ontario.
The approximately threemonth-old cubs were transferred to the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary north of Toronto after they were found by a motorist who stopped to use the washroom along the Trans-Canada Highway.
Howard Smith, managing director of Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, said the female cubs have adjusted well and have gained a lot of weight; they were 6 1/2 pounds (3 kilograms) when they first arrived and now weigh 25 to 30 lbs (11 to 13.5 kg).
“They rough play and there’s a lot of branches and logs, so they’re climbing and pulling in the enclosure they have now. They’re either sleeping or playing; they’re doing what little bears do,” Smith said.
The sanctuary has established strict conditions for handling the cubs. There is only one primary caregiver for the cubs, to ensure they are not habituated to human contact.
“They cover themselves with a mask and a sort of bear-scented robe to try to minimize human activity,” Smith said of the care approach. “There’s no talking around them and when they were younger, when they were being bottle fed, it was unavoidable to handle them.
“Once they got on to hard food, the only contact has basically been dropping food in and then leaving.”
The food is placed in log bowls, said Smith, so if the cubs ever come across stainless steel dishes from campers, for example, they don’t associate it with food.
Parks officials have sent plants native to the Banff area to the sanctuary so the cubs can be fed with plants they’ll encounter once back in the wild. The cubs will soon be moved to a larger outdoor enclosure where they will stay until they are released back in the Banff area sometime next spring.