People are dressing up as bears to care for an orphaned cub

Staff at an animal shelter are going to awe-inspiring lengths to care for a tiny baby bear.

This bear cub was found orphaned and weak, but he’s now thriving. (San Diego Humane Society)

Campers in California’s Los Padres National Forest recently stumbled upon something unexpected: a tiny bear cub, crying by himself. The bear weighed just a few pounds and was small enough to fit into your palms.

They reported the find to the campground host who called in the the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Hoping the cub’s mom would reappear, scientists at the department gave it some time but the cub remained alone.

He was very weak and undernourished and would not be able to survive on his own without his mom for long, so the team brought him into a wildlife center run by the San Diego Humane Society.

As Sydney Page reports in the Washington Post:

When he arrived, the cub was “extremely fragile,” said Autumn Welch, wildlife operations manager at the center. “After going several days without nutrition, it was touch-and-go at first.”

He was the youngest cub the center had ever cared for and in a difficult condition. The staff at the center made sure to provide him with intensive care: feeding him several times a day, and sometimes overnight, to ensure he would gain back strength. Slowly but surely he did.

But here’s where things looked a bit different than your typical animal rescue story. Animal shelters frequently find stray puppies and kittens (and fully-grown dogs and cats) and rehabilitate them. The goal is to get the animal to a point where they can be adopted by a loving family.

In the case of the cub though that goal wasn’t part of the plan, given that he’s not a domesticated animal.

Instead, the staff want to release him into the wild. To do so, requires that they prepare him with the survival skills he needs to be able to feed and take care of himself. As part of this, it’s key is that he does not form close connections with humans and start to depend on them for these things.

The staff went to great lengths to prevent this:

When staff interact with the cub, they are usually garbed head-to-toe in a bear costume. They wear a bear mask and an oversize fur coat, as well as leather gloves. They also rub black-bear-scented hay they got from a local sanctuary all over.

“We don’t want him touching our skin at all,” Welch said, explaining that they are trying to prevent the cub from forming bonds with humans, which would disrupt his natural instincts and make it more difficult for him to survive in the wild. “He never sees us as humans.”

“We’re dedicated to doing whatever we have to do to keep him wild,” she said.

Indeed, beyond their bear costumes, staff have also created two habitats for the cub — one inside and one enclosed outside — that mimic the wilderness. They’ve built climbing structures made from natural trees, and they’ve covered the environments with leaf litter, dirt and branches. They also place stuffed bears around the habitat. The cub often cuddles up with the large one.

“It’s his surrogate mama,” Welch said. “He would lay with her instead of laying out in the open and being exposed.”

Check out the photo below to see the staff dressed up in a bear costume (you can find more photos and videos here). The costume looks a bit creepy to me, but it seems that the appearance, combined with the scent, is successful in tricking the cub. The plan is to continue this for about a year, at which point they hope to release him into the wild.

It is awe-inspiring to learn about how far the staff at the center are willing to go — and the discomforts they are willing to endure, wearing heavy furs and masks for a full year — in order to help one little bear recover.

Especially as the news cycle is flooded with articles about humans doing bad things to each other, reading this story reminds me that we also have tremendous capacity to care for animals — and each other.

A human is dressed up in fur and a bear mask to care for the cub. (San Diego Humane Society)