Little bear makes it to Bronx Zoo

A grizzly bear cub from Glacier National Park was scheduled for a trip to the Bronx Zoo via FedEx on Wednesday.

The male cub was scheduled to leave that morning and should arrive by Wednesday night, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife grizzly bear recovery coordinator Chris Servheen.

The cub was the surviving member of a controversial decision by Park managers to remove its mother from the Old Man Lake area in Glacier.

The sow had a habit of approaching humans and entering camps where people were and Park managers feared she would eventually harm someone. The Park tried to haze her in previous years. That effort worked, but then this year, when she had cubs, she was back in campgrounds again.

She was shot by rangers Aug. 17 and a second cub — a female — died when a tranquilizer dart went awry and apparently caused internal bleeding.

The surviving cub was held at a facility at Washington State University in Pullman. The Bronx Zoo, a non-profit zoo run by the Wildlife Conservation Society, is a worldwide conservation organization.

Moving the bear was delayed because the cage sent out by the zoo didn't fit on a commercial airline.

It does, however, fit in a FedEx cargo plane.

Servheen defended the decision to remove the sow, noting that if she had injured or hurt someone, it could have created resentment against bears and could have resulted in more deaths in the long term, as people who have great fear of grizzlies also have a tendency to kill them.

"We try to make these decisions in the long term to conserve the population," he noted.

Servheen noted that this bear had most certainly gotten food from people at some point. Grizzlies, by nature, aren't friendly to humans and generally avoid them.

"Bears are bears, they don't like to be friends with people," he said.

Despite the deaths, on the whole this has been a good year for bears. The huckleberry crop has been good. In test plots in the Cabinet Mountains, Servheen said the huckleberry crop is one of the best ever.

Local huckleberry crops have also been very good. Huckleberries are one of the main food sources for both black bears and grizzlies.