Orphaned bear cub doing well with new family, Maine IF&W biologists report

AUGUSTA — An orphaned bear cub from Caribou that was rescued by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife last April and placed with a new bear family is doing well 10 months later, the department reported.

Last April, Warden Alan Dudley caught the cub, whose mother had been hit by a car on the highway. Biologists Randy Cross and Amanda DeMusz took the cub deep into the woods to its new family, an den with Jen, an experienced mother bear, that they were familiar with. They’d already observed her in her den with a single cub a few weeks before the orphaned cub was found.
The bear research crew was out checking on dens again this year, and is happy to report that the adopted cub (now a yearling) is alive and well with its mother and sister. The sister was fitted with a tracking collar to be added to the research project. Only female bears are fitted with tracking collars, so the orphan male did not receive a collar, but he did get new ear tags.
The family is snug and safe back in their den. The yearlings will both leave their mother this spring to start their own lives.

PHOTO: Jen and her yearlings with Lisa Feener and Michael Bates, of the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. (Submitted photo)