Post by warsaw on Feb 15, 2012 1:15:07 GMT -9
Three bear cubs orphaned by their mother’s life of crime have been given a new lease on life in the Nevada outback.
Biologists and volunteers used snowmobiles and sleds Wednesday to haul the 200-pound, 1-year old bears to artificial dens in the Carson Range along the eastern Sierra southwest of Reno.
After the snow melts, experts hope the bears will emerge as natural backcountry wanderers, not the trash-raiding troublemakers they were learning to be when wildlife officials were forced to kill their mother last summer.
“I’m glad they’re out and where they need to be,” said Lynda Sugasa, who with her husband, David, raised the orphaned cubs for nine months at the Safe Haven Rescue Zoo in a remote area near Winnemucca.
Mother bear had a long history of trouble, beginning in 2006 by breaking into homes in the Stateline and Kingsbury Grade areas, said Carl Lackey, a biologist and bear expert with the Nevada Department of Wildlife.
“She was a very big troublemaker,” he said.
As she had done with previous litters, she was teaching the three cubs to break into homes and raid bear traps for food.
www.salon.com/2010/03/18/us_bear_cubs_released/
Biologists and volunteers used snowmobiles and sleds Wednesday to haul the 200-pound, 1-year old bears to artificial dens in the Carson Range along the eastern Sierra southwest of Reno.
After the snow melts, experts hope the bears will emerge as natural backcountry wanderers, not the trash-raiding troublemakers they were learning to be when wildlife officials were forced to kill their mother last summer.
“I’m glad they’re out and where they need to be,” said Lynda Sugasa, who with her husband, David, raised the orphaned cubs for nine months at the Safe Haven Rescue Zoo in a remote area near Winnemucca.
Mother bear had a long history of trouble, beginning in 2006 by breaking into homes in the Stateline and Kingsbury Grade areas, said Carl Lackey, a biologist and bear expert with the Nevada Department of Wildlife.
“She was a very big troublemaker,” he said.
As she had done with previous litters, she was teaching the three cubs to break into homes and raid bear traps for food.
www.salon.com/2010/03/18/us_bear_cubs_released/