BLACK BEAR REHABILITATION
Rescuing bears a labour of love
It’s been an unusually quiet winter for Mark Dallyn.
The 30-year-old veterinary technician from Dorintosh has become accustomed to tending to rescued black bear cubs on his 40 acres of land roughly 35 kilometres north of Meadow Lake. However, he released a pair of bears last spring and no other orphaned cubs made their way to him. The pen he built for them in 2010 sits empty.
“It’s really weird. I keep thinking I need to go check their den, but nobody’s in there,” he said.
Dallyn became Saskatchewan’s first and only black bear rehabilitator by chance seven years ago. The lifelong animal lover fell in love with wildlife rehabilitation during his veterinary technician studies and acquired his provincial wildlife rehabilitation licence in 2009 so he could offer assistance to injured and orphaned wildlife in the province’s north. He thought he’d be caring for birds and small mammals, but then Dolly and Danny were dropped off on his doorstep.
The two black bear cubs, roughly the size of house cats, were orphans. Dallyn put them in an outdoor dog run and began calling zoos to see if anyone would take them. No one wanted them and he couldn’t bear to see the cubs euthanized, so he built a larger enclosure for the rapidly growing bruins.
“I never, ever planned to rehab black bears until those two came, and I guess it was just meant to be because I’m doing it now and it’s definitely my area of expertise and pretty much what I live for,” he said. “I guess I just fell in love with the animal. They’re just incredibly smart and so resilient.”
Since releasing Dolly and Danny, Dallyn has cared for seven other orphaned black bear cubs at Healing Haven Wildlife Rescue, which he operates out of his home. The animals come to him in the spring and he releases them a year later after they have hibernated on his property over winter.
He feeds the cubs puppy chow, meat, fruits and vegetables as inconspicuously as possible. His goal is to limit his interaction with the bears so they don’t get used to humans and become problem animals once they’re released. It’s been working so far; most of the bears Dallyn released are tagged by the Ministry of the Environment, so he knows they haven’t had encounters with conservation officers.
To give the bears a more wild experience, Dallyn has spent months fundraising and is now in the process of building a larger four-and-a-half acre pen attached to the existing smaller run. He said he hopes it will be ready to use this spring, when he expects orphan cubs to show up again.
“That’ll keep their human contact to just about zero. It’s just about providing them a safe place to grow up,” he said. “They can just practise being wild bears.”
It will also help him stay out of dangerous situations. When the larger pen is built, Dallyn will be able to close the bears off while he puts their food in the existing, smaller run.
“There’ve been a couple over the years that like to push it a little bit and kind of huff and puff and come running at you — you do have to be careful — so that’s what I’m really excited about this new enclosure, is that that won’t have to happen anymore,” he said.
He would also like to rehabilitate injured adult black bears once he has the bigger space, but is not sure if he will be allowed to.
Jeanette Pepper, a wildlife ecologist with the Ministry of the Environment, said the ministry has no knowledge of anyone ever rehabilitating adult black bears in Saskatchewan and that those hoping to care for adult bears would need to meet different standards than those who take in bear cubs. Because the government is in the process of strengthening the qualifications required by those who care for certain animals, it’s not yet clear what different standards Dallyn would need to meet to accept adult bears.
“Each situation still needs to be looked at to determine the feasibility of rehabilitation and release of healthy animals safely back into the wild in Saskatchewan. Considerations still need to be taken into account, such as around the care and release of animals, especially dangerous species, so that public safety is not an issue,” Pepper said.
Dallyn said he hopes government changes do not affect his ability to take in bear cubs.
“It would be quite the shame because there would be lots of cubs being put down needlessly,” he said. “Not only that, but you get into members of the public that don’t want to see these little bears get put down and so you get into people that don’t have the training, don’t have the facilities, trying to keep these animals and rehab them themselves secretly. And not only is that not good for the cubs, but it’s not good for the public either.”
For now, Dallyn said he is optimistic he will be able to take in cubs this year and is already looking forward to his next batch of baby bears. The first ones typically arrive in April. By then, his large backyard pen should be waiting for them.
I never, ever planned to rehab black bears until those two came, and I guess it was just meant to be because I’m doing it now.