Two orphaned grizzly bear cubs have a new home at the Toledo Zoo, though they won’t be on exhibit for several weeks.
The female cubs arrived Tuesday night, and they will be quarantined for 30 to 60 days. They were likely born in January or February.
Their mother was killed Aug. 13 by officials with the U.S. National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service after they identified her as the bear that killed and fed on hiker Lance Crosby, 63, of Montana the previous week in Yellowstone National Park. DNA evidence, capture location, track marks, and bite wounds implicated a bear visitors called Blaze in the attack.
Dr. Randi Meyerson, assistant director of animal programs at the zoo, said the cubs are too young to survive on their own and would have been killed if a new home was not located for them.
“If we didn’t feel we could give them a good quality of life and a good place to live, we wouldn’t have committed to taking them,” she said.
An online petition seeking to block the cubs’ transfer to any zoo called “Send Orphaned Grizzly Cubs to a Rehabilitation Center or Sanctuary ... Not a Zoo!” garnered more than 196,200 signatures.
The cubs arrived in Toledo in good health, weighing an estimated 60 to 70 pounds each. Dr. Meyerson said they are eating well and playing with enrichment items in their quarantine area.
They are shy and a bit cautious,” she said, noting that’s not unusual for any incoming animal. “We’re letting them settle in on their own.”
The bears won’t be placed on exhibit until their quarantine process is complete and they are sufficiently acclimated.
“Our main priority is the bears’ welfare. We’re not going to rush them,” Dr. Meyerson said. “The bears will determine when it’s time for them to be on exhibit.”
She added most black and brown bears in zoos aren’t captive-bred but rescued.
“Almost all of those animals are ones that have been rescued from the wild, either as orphans or as nuisance animals that would have been destroyed,” Dr. Meyerson said.
The cubs are the zoo’s first brown bears in more than 30 years.
If voters approve an upcoming ballot measure for the renewal of the zoo’s 10-year, 1-mill capital levy, the bears will become part of a larger brown-bear exhibit.
First Published September 3, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
