Autumn Welch wears a mink coat, leather gloves, and a bear mask to work these days, then enters a cage to feed and coo over a 12-pound (5.4 kg) black bear cub she intends to adopt as a family member.
The orphaned cub was about two months old when he was discovered on April 12 in Southern California’s Los Padres National Forest, frail, underweight, and alone. Since then, Welch’s team has worked with the San Diego Humane Society to care for the newborn bear in sessions that simulate familial behavior. The goal is to finally restore the cub to the wild.
The bear outfit is intended to prevent the rescued cub from associating with people. Fur coats are housed in hay bins perfumed by black bears. The team tried several masks before finding one that fit perfectly.
“Mama” is a massive stuffed teddy bear pushed up in the corner of a pen at the Humane Society’s 13-acre (5-hectare) Ramona Wildlife Center near San Diego. According to Welch, the wildlife operations manager, that’s where the cub goes when he’s scared or just wants to snuggle up and slumber.
“He’s probably really missing his real mom,” she told me.
When the costumed caregivers arrive, the cub treats them like siblings. He enjoys playing with them and munching on grass and fresh wildflowers.
A milestone was recently reached when the kid learned to dig into soil for worms and insects, “which he picked up pretty quickly,” Welch added. Other food is hidden in tree branches for him to discover on his own. Team members were encouraged when they discovered the youngster snoozing on a tree branch, a common behavior among bears in the wild.
“He’s extremely thoughtful. “He’s constantly taking in his surroundings,” Welch explained.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife attempted to reunite the youngster with his mother when campers discovered him. They released the youngster into the wild overnight but took him in when she did not come. The underweight 3-pound (1.3 kg) young bear was subsequently taken to the Ramona Wildlife Center.
Since then, the cub has grown to four times its original size.
Biologists plan to release him to the wilderness next year if he can learn to find food, shelter, and avoid humans.
The cub is the fourth to attend a rehabilitation facility in California in the last five years. If another one appears, he might be placed with a companion to lessen the likelihood of them imprinting on people.
Last year, employees at the Richmond Wildlife Center in Virginia played as mother foxes, feeding and caring for an orphaned kit. A caregiver dressed in a red fox mask and rubber gloves feeds the small animal with a syringe. Like the California cub and his teddy bear, the kit sat on a huge stuffed animal fox designed to resemble her mother.
Welch explained that because the costumed-care practice is very new, there is no convincing data on its usefulness yet. However, in Ramona, humane society staff wearing coyote masks successfully nursed three orphaned pups, who have since been returned into the wild.
And the Humane Society is stockpiling animal masks just in case.
“We haven’t found a good skunk mask yet,” Welch explained.