Why don ABR bears become habituated?
Appalachian Bear Rescue has assisted 83 bears to date and not even one bear released from the facility has ever been reported as a “garbage” bear or a “nuisance” bear. ABR attributes this record to our procedures so we will describe them here: When it has been determined by wildlife officials that a cub has been orphaned (after 48 hours of monitoring and giving every opportunity for the sow to return for her cub), the cub is captured and admitted to ABR. If the cub is over 5 pounds in weight, it is immediately placed on a commercial formula, bottle-fed every 3-4 hours, and housed with other cubs for comfort and companionship (offering a minimum of human contact). If the cub weighs under 5 pounds, wildlife officials immediately begin the search to find a suitable surrogate mother in the wild while the cub receives care at ABR’s facility. If a cub can be reintroduced to the wild immediately with a surrogate mother and siblings, the process moves quickly. If not, the cub is raised at ABR’
