REXBURG – Last December, an orphaned black bear cub was found along Salmon River Road near Panther Creek. Several concerned citizens in Salmon reported hearing bear noises in the middle of December.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game quickly captured the bear. In an interview with BYU-Idaho Radio, Mike Demik with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game says the bear was “really close to the river and the road.”
The fact that the bear was not hibernating with its mother implies that it was orphaned and at serious risk of not surviving past the winter, Demik says.
"We were just very fortunate that this little cub was not getting into trouble and that he wasn’t accustomed to people or eating trash and that he was young, he was by himself, and he didn’t have any bad habits,” Demik says.
Fish and Game officers took the bear to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator in Idaho that specializes in black bears, which means the cub’s chance of survival is high.
The cub is now sharing an enclosure with another bear where they will be cared for through the winter. Next summer they will be released back into the wild.
"The timeliness of it was important in this case because the cub was really young, and it would not have survived for very long without its mother and without it being in hibernation,” Demik says. “So, if we would have waited another two or three days that bear probably would have died.”