More orphaned bear cubs in Ontario being rehabilitated compared to same time last year

A rehabilitation centre for black bears in Ontario is taking care of more than double the number of orphaned cubs compared to the same time last year.

Founder of Bear With Us Centre for Bears, Mike McIntosh, says the centre has had 71 cubs since before December 31, 2020.

McIntosh says December 31, 2019, he was taking care of 27 cubs, and in 2018 that time, there were 47 bears at the rehab centre.

McIntosh says this increase in number of orphaned cubs is an indication there are more orphaned bears this year in the province.

Cubs can become orphaned a few different ways, including if their mothers are killed by a vehicle on a highway, or if someone shoots a sow (mother bear) on their property because they think the animal is a threat, but McIntosh says the majority of little ones coming into the centre for rehabilitation is due to hunting.

McIntosh says he knows it’s mostly hunting orphaning the cubs because he receives reports from people who have heard gun shots, knows there’s hunting not far from where the animals live, and officials have told him.

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“There’s more orphaned cubs in a year that there’s a lack of natural foods for bears in general,” McIntosh says, “that’ll be the result of bears roaming far and wide looking for food.”

“Because they [bears] roam more, they become more susceptible to being victims of human activity,” McIntosh says, “the highest numbers would come from bears that go into hunting bait sites and get shot by hunters — and if it’s a female in the fall, it orphans her cubs.”

McIntosh says it’s after the fall bear hunt when he receives the most cubs.

During the spring bear hunt, which was given the green light by the province after a five-year pilot project, it is illegal to shoot a mother bear with cubs, the province explaining in an email, “throughout the late spring, summer and early fall, cubs will be exposed to natural food locations and sources. By the fall hunting season, black bears that were born over the previous winter have generally reached a sufficient size to be able to take care of themselves (e.g. able to seek out food and shelter).”

“If they’re able to look after themselves, we wouldn’t have that many cubs here every fall,” McIntosh points out.

Cubs usually stay with their mother until they are about a year and half in age, and McIntosh says a cub’s size has to do with them staying with their mother as well, “when they’re at 18 months of age, they’re no longer nursing on their mother, and they’ve had enough experience by following the mother bear around to know where to find particular food sources, that particular time of year.”

“If they get orphaned in August or September, the cubs should weigh between 30 and 40 pounds,” McIntosh says, “by the time they’re caught up and brought to us, they weigh less than half of that often.”

McIntosh says sometimes cubs are “too far gone” to be helped due to starvation.

McIntosh says bear cubs accompanied by a mother in the spring and fall should be protected — and regulations need to be changed.

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“There’s a lot of hunters that I talk to who have a high standard of ethics — who wouldn’t even think of shooting a mother bear accompanied by their cubs — whether it was legal or not,” he says, “just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right.”

Wildlife Biologist with the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH) Keith Munro says it’s concerning to hear more orphaned bears have been showing up, “however, I don’t know that we can make that link to say that it’s hunters,” adding there are many ways a cub can be orphaned.

Munro says it’s important to know the difference in hunting regulations between the spring season and fall season, and the “biological drivers behind that”

“The big difference is in the spring season, a cub is not self sufficient. If the mother is killed for any reason, the chances of that cub being able to survive on its own is obviously very poor,” Munro says.

Munro says research in Minnesota and Michigan concludes in the fall, “once bears are over a five to seven month age, they are self sufficient.” He says research shows that denning is instinctive so bears more than seven months of age can den in the winter months, without their mothers, and survive until spring.

“The regulations reflect that — it is illegal to kill a female with cubs in the spring, but that is not in the place in the fall, so hunters are very careful in the spring to avoid… or to not kill a mother with cubs, but in the fall, that’s not a restriction on hunters.” Munro says.

For hunters in the province, Munro says it’s about knowing the target and taking a shot that is legal, which is the core of hunter training in Ontario. Munro adds it’s required for hunters to take training, pass an exam and maintain a licence.

Munro says ways a hunter identifies the difference between a male and female include differences in the animal’s build, head shape, and hairs around their genital regions.

Munro says fall harvest data shows 2/3rds of bears are males.

“Really when it comes down to hunter regulations, the requirement is not to identify a male from a female — the requirement is to ensure that in the spring, a hunter is not harvesting a female that has cubs with them,” Munro says.

“In the spring, the onus is on the hunter to take that time, when the bear comes in, when they observe a bear, to take the time and be absolutely sure that that bear does not have cubs with it,” Munro says.

Munro says he would like to see more information and data about the orphaned bear cubs this year, “because if there are conservation concerns, we absolutely do want to deal with that.” He says the organization wants to make sure there’s a sustainable black bear population in Ontario.

“Black bears are an incredibly important part of Ontario’s bio-diversity and we want to ensure that the management that’s going on doesn’t threaten their persistence on the landscape,” Munro says.

Munro says the goal of hunting black bears in the province is to obtain meat, and if you harvest a bear, there’s a legal obligation that the meat is used — and it’s illegal to let it spoil.

The province says Ontario is home to a healthy black bear population, and all protections remain in place and it is illegal to harvest cubs and female bears with cubs during the spring season — if anyone is convicted of doing so, they could face a $25,000 fine and up to one year in prison. During hunting seasons, conservation officers are out on the landscape checking, it said.

“The OFAH supports those fines,” Munro says, “we always push for wildlife management regulations that are backed by science, and there’s a solid science case that says that we should not be harvesting females with cubs in the spring.”

The province says it anticipated last year would see many cubs born, due to an abundance of natural food in 2019, “in 2020, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry has experienced a higher than usual call volume relating to solitary bear cubs.”

In 2020, the province saw 25,011 bear hunting licence sales, and 25,818 in 2019.

The ministry says it continues to work closely with wildlife rehabilitators to help address local circumstances.

If you find an abandoned bear cub, you can call your Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry office, but from April to November you are asked to call the Bear Wise Reporting Line.

McIntosh says he’s thankful for the staff who work with the ministry for driving across the province to retrieve the cubs who need help.

“If it wasn’t for the efforts of a lot of parties, especially the people who work for the MNR, a lot of these cubs would have just starved to death in the wild — so the credit goes to them,” McIntosh says.

McIntosh says the 71 cubs in his care doesn’t tell the big picture of the story.

“We know that there’s potentially hundreds more out there that are starved because nobody just saw them — so we know we don’t have all the orphaned cubs– we’re just trying to do the best we can and so is everybody else involved in catching these cubs,” McIntosh says.

 

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