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The Independent
27-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
Orphaned bear cub finds comfort in a teddy bear and costumed caregivers
Autumn Welch dons a fur coat, leather gloves and a bear mask for work these days, then enters an enclosure to feed and fawn over a 12-pound (5.4 kg) black bear cub who she hopes will consider her family. The orphaned cub was about two months old when he was found April 12 in Southern California 's Los Padres National Forest — weak, underweight and alone. Since then, the baby bear has been cared for by Welch's team with the San Diego Humane Society in sessions that mimic familial behaviors. The hope is to eventually return the cub to the wild. The bear costume is meant to stop the rescued cub from bonding with humans. The fur coats are stored in bins with hay scented by black bears. The team went through a few masks before finding one that fit properly. 'Mama' is a giant stuffed teddy bear propped up in the corner of a pen at the humane society's 13-acre (5-hectare) Ramona Wildlife Center near San Diego. That's where the cub turns when he's spooked or just wants to snuggle up for a nap, said Welch, the wildlife operations manager. 'He's probably really missing his real mom,' she said. When the costumed caregivers enter, the cub treats them like siblings. He rambunctiously plays with them and happily accepts grass and fresh wildflowers to munch. A milestone was met recently when the youngster learned to dig through soil for worms and insects, 'which he caught on to pretty quick,' Welch said. Other food is placed in tree branches for him to find on his own. Team members took heart when they recently found the cub snoozing on a tree branch, a common behavior for bears in the wild. 'He's very thoughtful. He's constantly taking in his environment,' Welch said. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife tried to reunite the cub with his mother after campers found him. They returned the youngster to the wild overnight, but took him in when she didn't appear. The emaciated 3-pound (1.3-kg) baby bear was then transported to the Ramona wildlife center. The cub has quadrupled in size since then. Biologists hope they can return him to the wilderness next year, provided he can learn to find food, seek shelter and avoid people. The cub is the fourth to enter rehab care in California in the past five years. He could be paired with a buddy if another one turns up, because that would reduce the risk of them imprinting on humans. In Virginia, employees of the Richmond Wildlife Center last year acted like mother foxes to feed and care for an orphaned kit. Video shows a caregiver in a red fox mask and rubber gloves feeding the tiny animal from a syringe. Like the California cub and his teddy bear, the kit sat on a large stuffed animal fox that was supposed to look like her mother. The costumed-care technique is relatively new, Welch said, so there's no conclusive research on its effectiveness. But in Ramona, humane society employees wearing coyote masks successfully raised three orphaned pups who have since been released into the wild. And the humane society is amassing animal masks just in case. 'We haven't found a good skunk mask yet,' Welch said.
Associated Press
27-05-2025
- General
- Associated Press
Orphaned bear cub finds comfort in a teddy bear and costumed caregivers
Autumn Welch dons a fur coat, leather gloves and a bear mask for work these days, then enters an enclosure to feed and fawn over a 12-pound (5.4 kg) black bear cub who she hopes will consider her family. The orphaned cub was about two months old when he was found April 12 in Southern California's Los Padres National Forest — weak, underweight and alone. Since then, the baby bear has been cared for by Welch's team with the San Diego Humane Society in sessions that mimic familial behaviors. The hope is to eventually return the cub to the wild. The bear costume is meant to stop the rescued cub from bonding with humans. The fur coats are stored in bins with hay scented by black bears. The team went through a few masks before finding one that fit properly. 'Mama' is a giant stuffed teddy bear propped up in the corner of a pen at the humane society's 13-acre (5-hectare) Ramona Wildlife Center near San Diego. That's where the cub turns when he's spooked or just wants to snuggle up for a nap, said Welch, the wildlife operations manager. 'He's probably really missing his real mom,' she said. When the costumed caregivers enter, the cub treats them like siblings. He rambunctiously plays with them and happily accepts grass and fresh wildflowers to munch. A milestone was met recently when the youngster learned to dig through soil for worms and insects, 'which he caught on to pretty quick,' Welch said. Other food is placed in tree branches for him to find on his own. Team members took heart when they recently found the cub snoozing on a tree branch, a common behavior for bears in the wild. 'He's very thoughtful. He's constantly taking in his environment,' Welch said. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife tried to reunite the cub with his mother after campers found him. They returned the youngster to the wild overnight, but took him in when she didn't appear. The emaciated 3-pound (1.3-kg) baby bear was then transported to the Ramona wildlife center. The cub has quadrupled in size since then. Biologists hope they can return him to the wilderness next year, provided he can learn to find food, seek shelter and avoid people. The cub is the fourth to enter rehab care in California in the past five years. He could be paired with a buddy if another one turns up, because that would reduce the risk of them imprinting on humans. In Virginia, employees of the Richmond Wildlife Center last year acted like mother foxes to feed and care for an orphaned kit. Video shows a caregiver in a red fox mask and rubber gloves feeding the tiny animal from a syringe. Like the California cub and his teddy bear, the kit sat on a large stuffed animal fox that was supposed to look like her mother. The costumed-care technique is relatively new, Welch said, so there's no conclusive research on its effectiveness. But in Ramona, humane society employees wearing coyote masks successfully raised three orphaned pups who have since been released into the wild. And the humane society is amassing animal masks just in case. 'We haven't found a good skunk mask yet,' Welch said.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Ramona Wildlife Center Raises Orphaned Bear Cub With Love... And Some Costumed Theatrics
*INSERT VIDEO HERE WHEN READY* At the San Diego Humane Society's Ramona Wildlife Center, the team isn't just raising a black bear cub — they're doing it in bear suits. 'We do our best to look like bears, smell like bears, and sound like bears,' said Autumn Welch, Wildlife Operations Manager at the center. The cub, approximately two months old when he arrived, was found crying and alone by campers on a trail in Los Padres National Forest. Despite efforts by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to reunite him with his mother, including an overnight watch and the use of trail cameras, no sign of her ever surfaced. (MORE: Tennessee Community Unites To Save Rare Fish) The cub, weighing just three pounds and 'a little thin, a little emaciated,' was transferred to the Ramona Wildlife Center for rehabilitation. It's unclear what happened to his mother, but 'he probably went several days without nutrition or even hydration for that matter,' said Welch. This case is rare. Only four bear cubs this young have come into care in California in the past five years. 'Usually when we get bear cubs, they're a little bit older,' Welch explained. The Ramona center is one of only four facilities in the state permitted to rehabilitate black bears, and the only one in San Diego County licensed to care for apex predators like bears, mountain lions, and bobcats. From the beginning, the cub needed constant attention and a carefully structured environment that mimicked maternal behaviors. That's where the bear suits came in. Drawing on best practices, the team cobbled together a costume using donated fur coats and realistic bear masks ordered off Amazon. 'We've gone through several bear masks,' Welch said with a laugh. 'In the beginning he was so little and really just trying to figure out what had happened, where he was, who we were, and so we really wanted him to see us as other bears.' (MORE: Frozen Bald Eagle Rescued, Released Back Into Wild) The team's commitment extended beyond wardrobe. They introduced a large stuffed teddy bear into the cub's enclosure, and he immediately bonded with it. 'She's almost like his mother,' Welch said. 'When he gets nervous or hears a loud noise… he goes to the big teddy bear.' These extra steps aren't just adorable, they're essential. 'When he was first with us and we wanted him to learn how to explore his environment, we would take a small stuffed animal and use it kind of like a little sibling and move it around and look in the dirt,' Welch explained. 'He'd come over out of curiosity, 'Oh, what are you looking at?'' And it's not just bears. '"We do the same even with our little skunks. We give them stuffed animal skunks. The raccoons get stuffed animal raccoons and it works really well,' Welch said. (MORE: How A Lucky Turtle Jumped To Freedom) The cub now sees the humans (in their fur-covered disguises) as his siblings or playmates. "He's fascinated with all the smells, the flowers, the insects, everything we can bring him that his mom would be showing him and teaching him how to do, and we're looking for these various milestones as he's growing," Welch said proudly, adding "He's up to about 12 pounds now, so he's quadrupled in size." Despite the lighthearted visuals of grown adults in costume alongside a bear cub, the work is serious and resource-intensive. 'It's all based on support and donations, so we really do appreciate being able to tell his story' Welch said. 'Without wildlife rehabilitation centers, most likely these babies would not survive.' When the time is right and the cub has developed all the necessary skills to live on his own, the plan is to return him to the wild. 'Our job is to slowly phase ourselves out, teach him that independence,' explains Welch. 'We want to be able to see them go back to the wild and thrive and be able to coexist peacefully with humans.' Until then, the masked caregivers of Ramona Wildlife Center will continue their unusual and heartwarming mission, one costume at a time. (MORE: Injured Manatee Rescued From Florida Keys Brush Fire) lead editor Jenn Jordan explores how weather and climate weave through our daily lives, shape our routines and leave lasting impacts on our communities.
New York Times
23-05-2025
- General
- New York Times
‘Baby Bear' Learns How to Be Wild From Humans in Fur
The lonely 2-month-old black bear cub who was weak, dehydrated and underweight when he arrived at a wildlife center in Southern California last month may have had bigger problems than to question why his new caretakers looked rather gaunt. Apparently, he has yet to discover that they aren't bears at all, but people donning pelts and furs to disguise their humanness. That's because the make-believe bears are staff members with the Ramona Wildlife Center at the San Diego Humane Society, which has been experimenting with the practice of dressing up to welcome bear cubs and other wildlife that has been abandoned or lost. The hope is that the cub will not form an attachment to humans, losing its instinctual behaviors and becoming reliant on people for food, the center said. The ash-brown colored cub (the fur of American black bears comes in a wide array of colors) is still learning how to be a bear. Baby Bear — his unofficial name among humans — arrived at the wildlife center in April after campers discovered him in Los Padres National Forest in Central California, as previously reported by The Washington Post. He was alone and crying out, center staff said. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife searched in vain for Baby Bear's mother. Now, a large stuffed teddy, one of many that populate his room, plays that part. 'If he gets scared by something, he hears a loud noise, he'll run over and seek comfort from the teddy bear,' said Autumn Welch, the center's wildlife operations manager. 'He looks at that as his surrogate mom.' Staff members are teaching him bear behaviors, like which grasses and flowers he can snack on, how to dig for insects and how to climb trees to reach safety. Baby Bear probably sees his caretakers, who wear vintage genuine furs donated to the center, as something more like siblings or playmates, Ms. Welch said. Even when sweating in the most voluminous mantles, the humans in bear costumes are considerably thinner than an adult black bear would be. (Black bears can stand as tall as seven feet and weigh in at up to 500 pounds.) To the human eye, when the caretakers put on the furs and wear stiff Halloween masks bought from Amazon, the result is creepy. 'You kind of have to leave your ego at the door,' Ms. Welch said of their appearance. The goal is to get Baby Bear healthy enough to reintroduce him to the wild. For now, the cub's world is a cinder block-walled room, filled with hay from a local bear sanctuary to keep him exposed to the scent of his bear kind. 'We went there and gathered a whole bunch of hay and things that smelled like their bears and put it on the fur coat, put it in his environment, rub it on ourselves,' Ms. Welch said, 'so that he's smelling black bears instead of human scent.' When Baby Bear gets too inquisitive with his caretakers, they make bear noises and try to distract him with moves like a mother bear, such as pushing food toward him. 'We have a few vocalizations that we can use to communicate with him as a mother would be doing,' Ms. Welch said. 'We do a little bit of acting like bears.' As another option, they cover their faces with camouflage masks commonly used by hunters and the military. Baby Bear will need to remain in their care for up to a year. The 16- to 17-month period that a cub typically spends with its mother in the wild is crucial to learning how to survive in the wild, said Spencer Peter, a biologist with the North American Bear Center in Minnesota. It is also the most difficult for humans to replicate. 'When they do get orphaned or they do get separated,' Mr. Peter said, 'it can be really challenging for us as humans to make up for the lack of the mother bear — not that it's impossible.' It requires a lot of time, resources and money, he said, and if rehabilitation fails, a bear released into the wild will want to return to humans and rely on them for food. Baby Bear would not have survived in the wild alone, Ms. Welch said. 'He was so little when he got here,' Ms. Welch said. 'This is the youngest we've ever cared for here. He could fit in your two palms — just three pounds.' He has been thriving — playing, climbing, exploring — in the center's care and now weighs more than 12 pounds. 'He's doing all the things on his own, and not looking for us, not relying on us,' Ms. Welch said. 'It's a good feeling to see that he is very well-adjusted.'
Washington Post
22-05-2025
- General
- Washington Post
Bear cub rescued from woods is being raised by humans dressed as bears
A tiny black bear cub was crying alone in the California woods, his mother nowhere in sight. He was less than two months old and weighed about three pounds. Campers in Los Padres National Forest found the baby bear on April 12 and the camp grounds host reported him to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Initially, biologists monitored the environment, with the hope that the cub's mother would return — but she did not. The cub couldn't survive on his own in the wild, so he was brought to San Diego Humane Society's Ramona Wildlife Center.
