It’s been about eight years since the Medicine River Wildlife Centre was allowed to provide care for orphaned bear cubs, and it isn’t prepared to care for them anytime soon.
Executive Director Carole Kelly said that’s because the centre wasn’t allowed to by law for so long.
“We aren’t prepared to take bears, we don’t have the facility to do it,” said Kelly. “That doesn’t mean we can’t further down the road.
“Nobody has built any facilities because we couldn’t take them.”
The Alberta government lifted an eight year ban on wildlife rehabilitation facilities accepting orphaned black bears.
According to a government release, the new policy will allow Alberta Fish and Wildlife staff to work with rehabilitation facilities “to ensure orphan black bear cubs are safely returned to the wild whenever possible.”
“In the beginning, we weren’t necessarily seen as professionals and over the years we’ve gained credibility and respect,” said Kelly.
Kelly is part of a committee that looked at what animals are restricted from non-governmental wildlife rehabilitation facilities. She said she has researched various methods to keep and care for orphaned black bears.
“I think some people will say ‘why do we need to?’ and I think you can say that about any species,” said Kelly. “We owe them a debt. We’re usually the reason they are orphaned.”
The Medicine River Wildlife Centre is one of 10 wildlife rehabilitation facilities permitted by the Alberta government.
Bears will be released back into the wild on or before Oct. 15 of the year they arrive at the facility, unless special approval is given. They will be fitted with monitoring devices and tracked by scientists.
Kelly said they once overwintered a bear at MRWC and released it into the wild in Kananaskis. They were able to track it for two months before it went too high up a mountain for the transmitter to work.
“We had a cage years ago that was equipped to do short-term housing,” said Kelly.
More recently, just before the change in 2010, three bear cubs, all orphans from the same mother bear, took up residence at MRWC.
“They were just little guys,” said Kelly. “We cared for them for a short period of time and then we took them to Cochrane (Ecological Institute) where they were raised and released from there.”
mcrawford@reddeeradvocate.com
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