Each year, a number of orphaned black bear cubs end up at FWP’s Wildlife Center in Helena. The bear cubs arrive anytime between spring and late fall during their first year of life. They have all been separated from their mothers (sows) for various reasons including:

• Sows killed by cars
• Sows illegally shot
• Cubs area abandoned by mothers because of poor environmental conditions, food shortage, or human disturbance

Over the course of the summer, FWP Wildlife Center caretakers feed the orphaned bear cubs as much food as they will consume. Bears are omnivorous and will eat far more vegetation than anything else. Local grocery stores donate fruits and vegetables which is supplemented by game meat. By fall, the cubs weigh 60-120 pounds, compared to wild bear cubs that weigh 30-50 pounds. The additional fat reserves are vital because bears may lose up to 25 percent of their body weight during hibernation, and these cubs will not have their mother to show them where to get the best spring foods.

Come autumn, caretakers gradually decrease the amount of food offered to the bear cubs. The well-fattened cubs begin to hibernate at the center. As temperatures drop, straw and wooden denning boxes are placed in the cages. Cubs learn to use straw as bedding, pulling it into their boxes. As cold temperatures set in, food is withdrawn. Within two weeks the bears begin to hibernate in their straw-laden and covered wooden boxes. Siblings are placed together. Single cubs usually form bonds with an existing sibling group or other single cubs. These groups are denned and released together.

The field biologists schedule releases based on weather conditions. When the snow has fallen and temperatures are just right, it’s time to put the bears back out in the wild where they belong. Late in winter, the hibernating cubs are removed from the center, taken to the mountains and placed in remote dens that wildlife biologists have prepared for the cubs’ return to the wild. Between January and early March bears are transferred to pre-dug dens in the Rocky Mountains or their denning boxes are used and covered with debris.

The bears are anesthetized, tattooed, ear-tagged and one of the cubs placed in the den is fitted with a radio collar. The radio transmitter allows FWP wildlife biologists to track the yearling bears as they leave their constructed dens.

If placed in an earthen den, bedding straw from the cubs’ wooden boxes is also brought out to the wild with them. Wildlife biologists believe the familiar smell of the Wildlife Center denning material encourages the cubs to stay in the new den. Once the bears are settled in, the den entrance is covered with pine boughs and snow.

The bears stay in the constructed dens until spring, emerging about the same time as wild bears. When they emerge, they begin life in the wild, searching for food in the form of green plants on the south-facing mountain slopes. Their extra fat reserves give these bears a little more time to acclimate to their wild environment as they learn on their own how and where to forage for food.

WHO- Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP), in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Services and local groups and individuals.

WHEN- These “second-chance” bear cubs usually begin to hibernate at the Montana Wildlife Center in November or December, about a month later than bears in the wild. In the middle of hibernation, they taken from the center and placed in their mountain dens—and, depending on the weather -- emerge from hibernation in April or May.

WHERE- FWP wildlife biologists have prepared bear dens in different mountain locations on public lands as far away from people as possible. They are dug out from the side of mountains, or, sometimes, the dens are man-made and covered with straw, wood chips, pine bows, and snow.

WHY- The denning program was developed as an alternative to euthanizing wild bear cubs that are orphaned. Staying in the wild could get them in trouble with people, as they have not learned to forage and often human food is too easily accessible. Zoos are not an option for these little cubs, either. The Montana Wildlife Center can see as many as forty bear cubs in one season; that would fill all the zoos in the US in just one year and these animals can live as long as 30 years! The main reason Fish Wildlife & Parks puts so much effort into rehabilitating Montana’s bear cubs is to put them back into the wild where they belong. While nothing is better for a young cub than its mother, FWP and the Montana Wildlife Center do what ever they can to provide the orphans with the care they need, keeping them growing, and wild.

Past research has determined that about 44 percent of the cubs survive at least one year. A study of wild bears in northwestern Montana documented a 37 percent survival rate among yearling black bears. The few bears that have later gotten in to trouble by wandering into urban or agricultural settings were euthanazed. So far, the denning and winter release program has given a number of bear cubs a second chance to go back to their wild homes, and most of them are making it on their own.