What Happens after a Bear Wanders Into a Drugstore?
A black bear cub found wandering the aisles of a drugstore will be raised with the goal of releasing her into the wild next year. Police scooped the cub into a shopping basket on Sunday at a Rite-Aid store in Ashland. Shoppers took video on their smart phones. The Oregon department of Fish and Wildlife said “the bear have been taken to the PAWS Wildlife Center in Lynnwood, Washington,” director Jennifer Convey said “rehabilitation staff cares for bears with hand-off methods designed to mimic condition in the wild. These conditions maintain an animal’s fear of people.” The department said it hoped to release the bear in somewhere southern Oregon next spring. According to KGW-TV, veterinarians estimated the cub, which weighs 13 pounds to be only about couple of months old. Biologists didn’t know what happen to her mother. The local bear population was healthy, so bear sightings were common in the area, but no recent sowed deaths had been reported according to ODFW. Initially, Authority said “it would not be possible to return the cub of the wild,” because of her contact with humans. The veterinarians at PAWS felt she had a chance with right kind of veterinarians. “Bears are given diets filled with natural foods they would normally forage in the wild,” said Jennifer Convey, PAWS wildlife director. “Rehabilitated bears maintain natural fear of humans and didn’t become habituated to people.”