Black Bear cub #22-1087

Admission Date: 
May 16, 2022
Location of Rescue: 
Salem, Virginia
Cause of Admission / Condition: 
Separated from mother
Prognosis: 
Good
Patient Status: 
Current Patient

On the afternoon of Sunday, May 15, a small Black Bear cub was rescued from a tree in Salem, Virginia. The bear had been seen in the same tree for 36 hours with no sign of a sow. The cub was first taken to the Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke for overnight care, then transported to the Wildlife Center of Virginia the following morning. 

The Wildlife Center's veterinary team examined the female cub and found her to be thin and dehydrated, with a body condition score of 1.5/5. Skin scrapes and radiographs were within normal limits; blood was also drawn for analysis. Given the cub's underweight body condition, it's likely that she was separated from her mother days ago. The cub weighed 1.48 kg. 

The rehabilitation staff placed the young bear in a Zinger crate and plan to bottle- or bowl-feed (depending on the cub's preference) three times a day. The Zinger crate was placed in the Center's Large Mammal enclosure, where two other cubs are currently housed. For now, the cub will live with cub #22-0685, since these two small bears are close in size. 

Your donation will help provide care to this Black Bear cub -- until spring of 2023! Thanks for your support.

Updates

March 15, 2023

In February, Dr. Karra, the Center's Director of Veterinary Services, was contacted by staff from the Department of Wildlife Resources to start planning the release of the Black Bear cubs of 2022. Given how mild the weather has been, the release has been scheduled for the first week of April. The current plan is to release one group of bears on Tuesday, April 4 and another group on Wednesday, April 5. 

To facilitate this, staff from DWR will bring large culvert traps to the Center that will be placed inside the bear yards. The bears will have about a week to get used to the traps before the day of the planned capture.

During the past month, the rehabilitation team has started to increase the bears' diet in preparation for spring and their upcoming release. 

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