Siân S. Waters & Clio Smeeton
Cochrane Ecological Institute,
PO Box 484
Cochrane
Alberta T4C 1A7

 

Mandate of the Cochrane Ecological Institute

'The Cochrane Ecological Institute- Cochrane Wildlife Reserve Society is devoted to the preservation of North America's biodiversity through the conservation and breeding of endangered indigenous species, ecosystem restoration through the reintroduction of extirpated flora and fauna, rehabilitation and release of injured or orphaned wildlife, the education and involvement of the public in conservation goals, and the monitoring of habitat and species through the development of non intrusive survey methods."

Bear projects over the last six years;:

Jemima and Juneau, two orphaned black bear cubs, were brought to the CEI in 1999. They had been observed over a period eight days in the lingering in vicinity of their dead mother, before being collected by Alberta Fish & Wildlife officers and taken to the CEI. They were very small, weighing between 5 and 6 pounds, and very dehydrated. Initially they were kept in the CEI nursery, and then moved out to an outdoor enclosure, and from there into a large, two and a half acre enclosure containing a variety of mature trees, where we had built an artificial "cave" for them to use to hibernate in over their first winter. This "cave' was constructed of linked heavy duty vehicle tires (THANK YOU KAL TIRE OF COCHRANE), stuffed with flax straw, lined on the inside with flax straw and covered on the outside with a mixture of flax straw and branches. The single entry to it was the size of a flax straw bale. At the onset of their first winter, Jemima and Juneau were very active and I thought that they would not hibernate, but, on the 17th of November, I noticed that the entry to the artificial "cave' had been filled by a flax straw bale, Jemima and Juneau had gone to bed and shut their door!

They reappeared the following spring on March 15th. Both bears developed good foraging skills and enjoyed the variety of trees in their large enclosure.

On July 9th, 2001, Jemima and Juneau, were released back into the wild in the Weldwood Managed Forest area which is located north west of Edson in Alberta, Canada. Prior to release they were tattooed and had radio ear-tag transmitters put into their ears, like earrings. Ear-tag transmitters are better for use on growing animals than radio collars, as there is no chance of constriction as the animal grows. We were fortunate to have Todd Shury, DVD, an expert wildlife veterinarian help us for this release project, evenso everyone was very relieved when we finally had them safely loaded into the transport truck!

These females were radio-tracked regularly during the summer and into the fall, support for this programme was provided by Canadian Pacific Railway, the World Society for the Protection of Animals, WSPA, and Zoocheck. This was the first study of its kind to be undertaken in Canada (S. Herrero, pers.comm.). Although they were released together they split up eight days after and established ranges adjacent to one another. One female's range included the release area and neither animal travelled far from the release site.

In April 2001, CEI received another black bear, a male, from the Fish & Wildlife service in Okotoks south of Calgary. This bear arrived in a very dehydrated state. Reports had been sent to Fish & Wildlife that a small bear cub had repeatedly, over a period of days, been sighted on the verge of the same stretch of road. Fish & Wildlife officers went out to the area and found the bear cub lying in the ditch. Examination of the area showed no sign of it's dam, or of any sibling. The lack of any sign of a dead animal lead the officers to the conclusion that the bear cub's mother had been illegally shot as result of the Spring Bear Hunt and carried off by the hunters. This bear cub wasa male, his name is Lima-bear.

In 2001 the CEI began and completed construction of a specially designed bear-cub facility, consisting of a "bear house" and access to a treed enclosure. The "bear house" has a sliding gate which enables the CEI's keepers to enclose cubs while working in the adjacent treed enclosure, or to exclude cubs while working inside the "bear house". It makes veterinary care for the bear cubs, if needed, much easier and safer. The treed enclosure is separated on one side by a tall cement wall from any sight of the keepers or researchers at the CEI, but on the other three sides the bear cubs can see all the other animals (if they pass by) at the CEI, moose, elk, bison, deer, coyotes, red foxes, etc. going about their business in the 160 acres that comprises the CEI. If the bear cubs climb their trees they can see people working at the CEI, by looking over the wall, but otherwise they cannot.

Lima bear was released in June 2003, wearing a new type of much smaller, radio transmitting eartags kindly provided by Alberta Fish & Wildlife department. Lima was also released into the Weldwood Forest management area. Our monitoring was not as long-term as the monitoring of Juneau and Jemima, in part because the signal transmitted by the new type of ear tag we found much harder to pick up using our receiver.

In April 2004 we received another sibling group of black bears. Their mother had been accidentally killed while still in hibernation and so these little bear brothers were the smallest bear cubs we had ever received at the CEI.  Their eyes were still blue and their milk teeth had not yet erupted. As they, unlike previous orphans, had not learned to lap, we had no alternative but to feed them on the bottle. We tried to get them to eat and lap, but they refused. It was not until the buds on the trees started to unfurl that the bear cubs would accept solid food, and then weaned them off the bottle and onto milk formula in a bowl.

By midsummer we had had a new and much larger three and a half acre enclosure constructed for them and had also built a small house for them, one in which it was intended that they should hibernate. The bears had different ideas and that first winter hibernated (very uncomfortably I think) in a large plywood box we had left in there as they seemed to like playing with it. Once it was clear that it was their intention to hibernate in the box we piled flax bales up against it for insulation. Like the previous bear cubs, these ones also began hibernation in November and rose from hibernation in late March.

It is a policy of the CEI always to over winter our orphaned bears for the first winter of their lives. This is because yearling cubs, in general, spend their first hibernation with their mothers. It is also the policy of the CEI to feed our bears a large amount of suitable food (fruit, vegetables, wild game, (thank you Cai Poulsen and Canada Safeway, we couldn’t feed our bears without you).  We feed our bears this enormous amount of food so that, when they are released they will be larger than wild animals of the same age class. The reason for this  is that our bears will be big enough to stand up for themselves against any resident bears in the area where they are released. The last thing you want is for rehabilitated bears to be pushed out of release sites by resident bears, because the likelihood is that they will be pushed out and pushed out until they end up in a site with no resident bears…and that site most likely has no resident bears because it has resident humans.

Our intention was to release these sibling bears in 2005, as eighteen month old bears, along the northern Athabasca River. But with the tremendous growth of Fort McMurray and the environmental imprint left on the land by oil sands mining, plus the population increase such development brings with it, it was clear that we could not release them there. Examination of the province of Alberta showed that the impact on wilderness of development and mining had increased beyond belief and by the midsummer of 2005 we still had not found a suitable site for release.  After extensive conversations with other bear rehabilitation organizations we decided to try a winter release for the first time.

Fortunately the Department of National Defense, DND, lands at Cold lake Alberta were both suitable and protected (no bear hunting) for this project and DND supportive of our bear release. Unfortunately, we were unable to raise the funding to monitor the bears post release. We had hoped that monitoring  our bears could be incorporated into a bear project already in place in the Cold Lake area, but, sadly for us, the project was completed prior to our bear release.  However the Environment officer at Cold lake keeps a very close eye on DND lands and  so, within the limits of tracking and observation, will have an idea how they are doing.

A winter release is very different from a mid summer release.  Essential for a winter release, apart from a suitable, protected, and undisturbed site, is an insulated transport box. Then you have to build a transport box that is tough enough to hold big bears and that the bears will choose over a den they dig themselves, And then, you have to persuade the bears that they should hibernate in the transport box…. We got a big steel road culvert donated (THANK YOU VOLKER STEVENS) and then a very kind metalworker (Thank you REMY) cut and soldered heavy steel into the ends of the culvert, closing one end and putting a sliding door on the other. Then we had to build a heavy wooden sledge to put the culvert on, insulate the culvert, and cover the insulated culvert with a wooden box (so the bears couldn’t rip the insulation out).  It was a lot of heavy work (thank you Dawn, Adam, Gabriella, Graham, Ken and Bill)We got this done by November of 2005…and meanwhile the bears had been constructing a den under a huge dead tree root…it was a race between us and fortunately our hibernating-transport-culvert-box was considered by the bears as superior (or less work) than their own tree root den. We moved it into their three and a half acre enclosure and they moved into it the next day.

 They hibernated over the winter of 2005-2006, and in February, 2006, the Alberta Fish & Wildlife (THANK YOU, STAN) had the transport arrangements in place to take them off to Cold lake a 10 hour drive if you are towing a trailer. The day before the move, we closed the bears door so they were unable to get out of their transport box. They didn’t even notice.

We asked our neighbor (Thanks a million Rod we couldn’t have done it without you) to bring his enormous tractor over and then took down the fence and Rod pulled the transport box with its bears, on its sled, out to where the fish & Wildlife trailer was waiting. There was a 500lb weight of bear in the box as well as the weight of the box itself so it was a very tricky job to get the box on the trailer, but finally we managed it. The bears did wake up while the box was tip tilting and swinging in the air, but had settled down again.by the time it was on the trailer and being strapped down for the long, long drive North to Cold Lake.

 

Once arrived at Cold Lake the Canadian Forces took the transport box and trailer out to a secluded site, took the transport box off the trailer, put a bag of food under the trailer door between the skids, then piled snow up infront of the door, a great snow bank. Once the snow bank was in place the sliding door was pulled up and fastened and everyone left.  The bears after a couple of yawns, slept through the whole thing, according to the Wing Environment officer. Once spring has arrived in the North, the bears will dig out of their snow bank, high, probably will find the food left fox them, and then begin to explore their new world.  We really wish that we would have been able to afford the funding necessary for post release monitoring, but we couldn’t.

Our research has already attracted a great deal of media interest in the rehabilitation of black bears and we have been contacted regularly by both TV and press regarding the project. This interest has raised awareness about bears and their welfare. The results from the first year of study have been extremely promising. Our aim has been to obtain enough information over the long term to ensure an acceptable sample size from which solid recommendations can be made regarding the rehabilitation and release of young black bears. These recommendations will need to be based on firm scientific evidence that rehabilitation in a suitable centre in preparation for release is a viable alternative to euthanasia. Needless to say. Long term monitoring of rehabilitated and released black bears requires funding, without the financial resources to support research in the field, and the financial resources to obtain radio transmitter ear tags and receivers we cannot undertake research on this important subject.

Black bears come into contact with people far more frequently than grizzly bears. As a result of habitat change, black bear populations experience greater human wildlife conflict situations, suffer a much greater loss of individual black bears per year, and a greater number of black bear cubs are orphaned annually, but Black bears are not nearly so glamorous as their larger cousin, the grizzly Bear. No one appears interested in them.

The first post release monitoring of rehabilitated black bears in Canada has had a very promising start. CEI is constantly developing expertise in the rehabilitation of black bears. These releases add significantly to our knowledge of rehabilitating young bears. This information may also be useful for the rehabilitation of other bear species in the future.

Budget
We are seeking funding for the following:

Item	Unit Cost	Total Cost
Vet's fees for one day	$400.00	$400.00
One ear tag transmitter	$800.00	$800.00
Administration	$800.00	$800.00
Picker Truck Rental for bear trap transportation	3 days at $150/day	$450.00
Gas		$1300.00
Staff time	40 days at $200.day	$8000.00
Accommodation and meals for two people	40 days at $20/day	$800.00
Maps, camping equipment, batteries		$300.00
Contingencies @ 20%		$2400.00
	Grand Total	$15250.00