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How did he know where the cub's mother was? Maybe the mother was getting its food, and the trail was next to it's den. This is close to when the bears came out of hibernation so that may be why the cub looked sickly. It also hasn't been bear hunting season for many months, so likely the mother was not killed by a hunter. He put himself in danger by picking that cub up. Any angry bear mama is nothing to mess with and by picking him up, he orphaned the curb and put himself at risk.
Only about half of the black bears born in the wild survive their first year. Healthy adult females can produce offspring annually, and often have twins. For the bear population to remain stable, not all can or should survive. Moreover, the bears that do survive are partly lucky, but also are the ones from sows who are disease resistant, good providers, attentive mothers, that have behaviors appropriate for survival in their environments. It is good for the bear population as a whole that those bears are the ones who pass on their genes and teaching.
It's easy to get sentimental about individual animals, particularly juveniles, but they're not pets, and American black bears are really, really not endangered.
How did he know where the cub's mother was? Maybe the mother was getting its food, and the trail was next to it's den. This is close to when the bears came out of hibernation so that may be why the cub looked sickly. It also hasn't been bear hunting season for many months, so likely the mother was not killed by a hunter. He put himself in danger by picking that cub up. Any angry bear mama is nothing to mess with and by picking him up, he orphaned the curb and put himself at risk.
This is true, he took a tremendous risk. He said he watched the baby from a distance for awhile, to see if there were any signs or sounds of momma-bear activity around. Still, he could have ended up with a momma bear in hot pursuit after him down the trail, following his scent, if she came back to find that her baby was gone.
It's easy to get sentimental about individual animals, particularly juveniles, but they're not pets, and American black bears are really, really not endangered.
Back in the early 70s, I was traveling through the Great Smokies National Park with several people. The traffic slowed to a halt. On the side of the road, a father had his camera out and had put something to eat on the ground for a black bear. His toddler was planted on the ground between the bear and the father for a "photo op". Everyone watching this was paralyzed, not sure what to do.
A park ranger showed up and threw rocks at the bear to scare it off. Then he turned to the father. The father was angry with the ranger for ruining his photo shoot. I kid you not. And it's the little boy who could have payed the price for his father's idiocy.
People like that see the wild as a giant amusement park created for their benefit, and wild animals as larger extensions of the pets back in their living rooms. You'd think with stories of people being killed by wild animals, including idiots in zoos jumping into enclosures to "get close to nature", that people would get it. They don't.
I suspect it's being done to prevent this guy from becoming a "viral Internet hero". He did a very dangerous thing, even though his heart was in the right place. Nobody should think it's OK to approach a bear cub, much less pick one up and carry it to a doctor. Yikes! He's lucky he's still alive.
Quite. Though it's tough not to have compassion for the animal a bear cub is not a lost puppy. He took a more than serious risk. Though the charges will likely end up being symbolic, folks do need reminding that wild animals , cute and cuddly as they may be, are best left be.
HE WAS SAVING A LIFE..... Something not many ppl do now!!!!!!
And something he was not trained to do. It is not a good idea for people to think that they can just go around picking up wild animals. What would have happened if baby bear wasn't alone and mamma bear was just a few feet away? Then we might be talking about how a hiker was mauled to death by a wild animal.
We don't even know if he actually saved the cub's life. Maybe it was perfectly fine, and now a mother bear has lost her baby. Do we not think of the mother bear who might have just been out getting food for her baby, only to come back and find him gone forever?
And something he was not trained to do. It is not a good idea for people to think that they can just go around picking up wild animals. What would have happened if baby bear wasn't alone and mamma bear was just a few feet away? Then we might be talking about how a hiker was mauled to death by a wild animal.
We don't even know if he actually saved the cub's life. Maybe it was perfectly fine, and now a mother bear has lost her baby. Do we not think of the mother bear who might have just been out getting food for her baby, only to come back and find him gone forever?
Exactly, there could be a very sad black bear sow mourning the loss of her CHILD! Due to some human idiot!
Oh well. They'd just have to charge me. Human nature is to help those in trouble. Like the bear with his head stuck in a container. There's a great video of that out there right now. People wouldn't stop until they had freed that bear. It would have died. Is that what we're supposed to do? Let stuff die when we can possibly help it?
No, it's not like that at all.
A bear with its head stuck in a container is in a predicament precisely because of human activity - namely, leaving containers around. For a person to rectify that problem that another person or persons created is not in any way encroaching on the natural order of things. On the contrary, a solitary bear cub is most likely not there alone because of human activity. It's conceivable that its mother was killed by a hunter or a car or somesuch, but far more likely than not there is another explanation. A natural explanation.
Shortsighted people think they're helping; they're not. In fact, they're doing greater harm. The gene pool of Ursus americanus is dependent on the genes of those animals who either are incapable of surviving youth, or are incapable of being effective parents, not being passed onto the next generation of Ursus americanus. People are used to thinking of animals as individuals, but they are more pertinently species. There is no bear Cub Protective Services. There's no bear Medicaid or bear Social Security. Black bears as a collective species are depending on natural selection to maintain the viability of the gene pool. When people think "Oh, I'm going to save this individual critter from naturally being selected out of the gene pool because it will make me feel better!", they're doing something for themselves and they're doing something for one critter but they doing nothing good for that species, which doesn't need those genes artificially perpetuated by feel-good human intervention.
It is quite common for female bears to abandon an infirm cub. Perhaps the hiker knew this. The animal officials don't seem to be well-informed.
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