Bear Cub Release May, 2019

May 6th was an exciting day for our bears at Wild and Free. At 7:30am, the process began with
me and Dr. Debbie Eskedahl moving the 4 big bears out of the 1+ acre pen into the smaller
fawn pen before the DNR arrived at 9:30am. Of course, the process never goes as smoothly as
expected. The 3 black bears went into the small pen right after we baited them with food just
as we hoped. However, our big cinnamon bear wanted to lounge a little longer in the tree. My
guess is that he’s not quite a morning guy! We added more dog food deeper in the pen and
opened the door trying to lure him in. As soon as we opened the gate, the 3 black bears ran
out. Just as we were going to get some liquid smoke to put on the food as an enticement, all
the bears decided to cooperate and quietly went back into the small pen. Great! Just when we
thought all was good, the bears decided to try and dig out of the pen. So I spent the next hour
babysitting the bears to ensure that they would not escape. Fortunately, Beth Walters joined
me and brought coffee. What a gal!!!

Dr. Debbie and Dave (MN DNR) making sure that the young bears are ready to go.

Dave (MN DNR) and his partner getting the tranquilizing darts ready to go.

This guy seemed to be curious about what was going on.

The cinnamon colored bear was the first to be tranquilized, you can see the dart hanging from its hip.

Before long it was taking a nap while waiting to be loaded into the cage on the truck for its trip to the norther part of the state where it would be released back into the wild.