Orphaned bear cubs fatten up in Colorado. Now they’re back to the wild, photos show
A pair of orphaned bear cubs were found hungry and in search of food as winter set in Colorado, wildlife officials said.
The cubs came from the same area in southwest Colorado in early November, and neither had denned for hibernation because they weighed only 30-40 pounds, Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Southwest Region said on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Feb. 24.
So District Wildlife Manager Ty Smith picked up the cubs and took them to the agency’s Frisco Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, where the facility manager “worked to fatten the cubs up,” officials said.
Just over a month later, they had more than doubled in size and “denned into a box to hibernate by Dec. 20, then weighing 70-85 pounds,” officials said.
Adorable photos show the cubs peering out and wildlife officials from inside the box.
It was too late in the season for wildlife officials to release the cubs to go find their own dens for winter, so they kept them (and their den box) at the facility until they could place the box — with the cubs inside — in national forest land, officials said.
Photos show wildlife officials sliding the box off a truck bed and carrying it off into the woods.
“The bears were awake during the move,” officials said. “Hay bales are placed along the backside of the den box, and the door gets removed. The bears will pull extra hay inside the den box for insulation and will keep snoozing in the den box for the rest of winter with plenty of fat to survive on.”
A lack of snow in southwest Colorado has been contributing to continued bear activity through the winter season, so the rehab facility has remained quite a bit busier than usual — after what was an already busy season for orphaned cub releases, McClatchy News previously reported.
“So our team was happy to return these two cubs to the wild this month,” officials said.
Officials will fetch the box in spring when the bears are done using it.
“Our goal is for these cubs to thrive, eventually reproduce and add to the Colorado black bear population,” officials said. “They are released far from developed areas with hopes they avoid conflict with humans in their lifetimes.”
This story was originally published February 24, 2025 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Orphaned bear cubs fatten up in Colorado. Now they’re back to the wild, photos show."
