Wildlife centre says cubs not ready for release
As Cochrane Ecological Institute president Clio Smeeton waits for a meeting today with government staff, she continues to oppose a mandated fall release of two orphaned black bear cubs from her rehabilitation facility.
Smeeton said if the province sticks to its protocol calling for bear cubs to be released from rehabilitation by Oct. 15 of the year they arrived at the facility, the animals are not likely to survive the winter.
“The animal research, 30 years of it, shows that cubs unaccompanied by their moms get eaten,” Smeeton said. “There’s a less than 30 per cent chance that they’ll survive over the winter, and everything in October is looking to put on its weight, every meat-eating thing. So that means that the unaccompanied cubs are at risk of not only big black bears, but grizzly bears and lynx and bobcats and coyotes and wolves.”
In April, Alberta lifted a ban that had been in place since 2010 on private rehabilitation of orphaned black bear cubs.
According to the province’s black bear rehabilitation protocol released on April 18, cubs are not to be kept over winter at rehabilitation facilities unless approved in writing by Alberta Environment and Parks officials. The document states that cubs will be evaluated for release suitability, and that staff will collect the cubs from the rehab facility and take them within home range of their capture location. Before release, they will be fitted with a monitoring device.
Smeeton said the institute has asked the province to change the cub release date specified in its protocol.
“There is absolutely no reason for demanding that the cubs should be released,” Smeeton said. “Having them here doesn’t cost anyone any money except us.”
The province has previously said the new policy minimizes human contact and prevents animals from becoming habituated to humans.
But Smeeton said staff at the 4.5 acre wooded land facility don’t see the bears, who they believe are around eight to nine months old, and only know what they are doing because of trail cameras set up around the centre.
“If this weather stays the same, they will be asleep before the end of October, and they will sleep for approximately five to seven months,” she said.
“There’s 30 years of evidence, of research, that shows that bears, if you release them at 24 months to 33 months, they’re bigger and heavier than their age class, and they have a greater chance of survival.”
Smeeton noted that normally, females with cubs spend the first winter of the cub’s life in hibernation with them, feeding them all winter. Because they are hibernating together, they don’t lose as much body weight trying to keep warm, and typically the females and cubs “are the last to get up” after the male bears.
She said the institute has been successfully rehabilitating black bear cubs since 1985, until the ban was put in place in 2012.
“We’re trying to rear them for successful release back into the wild population,” she said.
Alberta Environment and Parks officials could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.