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🌲🐻 Sunday Series: What’s in a Name?
Every Sunday, we’re introducing you to the story behind the names of our 6 resident cubs — because every name at ABR means something.
First up: Hemlock.
Cub #427 was named Hemlock when he arrived at ABR after he survived two weeks alone near the Smokies before TWRA Officer David Sexton rescued him at just 7.7 lbs. We named him after the eastern hemlock, a tree that embodies resilience, strength, and survival.
Did you know eastern hemlocks can live for hundreds of years, grow up to 150 feet tall, and their trunks can reach 6-7 feet wide? 🌲 These evergreen giants keep our streams cool and shady, and they shelter everything from nesting Blackburnian warblers to denning mama black bears. For generations, they’ve supported the people of Appalachia too, providing wood,, tannin-rich bark for tanning hides and the needles can be used to make a vitamin-C-packed tea! But don’t worry, hemlock trees are not related to poison hemlock—totally different plant, totally different family!
Unfortunately, these iconic trees have faced challenges too. The hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) an invasive insect that showed up in the Smokies in 2002, has wiped out nearly 90% of these majestic trees in the park—including ancient groves that stood for centuries. Agencies, universities, and conservation partners across the eastern U.S. have been fighting back with systemic insecticide treatments and predatory beetles to save what’s left.
Hemlock the cub and hemlock the tree are both getting a second chance—thanks to the dedication of so many conservation partners working together. Both remind us that strength and resilience show up in every size, from the tallest trees to the smallest cubs. ❤️
Check back next Sunday to meet another one of our cubs and the story behind their name! ...
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Poplar Bear Goes Out to the Wild Enclosures!🌳🐻
A few weeks ago, Poplar Bear came to ABR with a head injury from a suspected collision with a vehicle. After a few weeks of rest and recovery, he was officially ready to join the other five cubs in the Wild Enclosures! As far as we can tell, all the cubs are getting along just fine🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻
It never ceases to amaze us just how resilient bear cubs are and we are grateful to be able to give Poplar a second chance at life in the wild. Thanks for helping us help cubs! ...
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September 11, 2026
🌹💛 ...
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Please join us today in honoring and remembering “The Bear Man”, Dr. Mike Pelton. A man whose contributions to the conservation and understanding of the Smoky Mountain black bear population and other smokies species cannot be overstated. His legacy is marked by an endless list of honors, achievements, accolades, and an exceptional number of wildlife professionals and organizations who can trace their origins back to him and his research lab at the University of Tennessee. Appalachian Bear Rescue is one of those organizations and many ABR board members, employees and volunteers are some of those professionals.
In 1989, the bear population of the Smokies had recovered and expanded substantially from likely record low numbers in the 1970s. A hard mast failure across the region that Fall led to a surge in human-bear conflict and, inevitably, a significant number of orphaned cubs. In the following years, Kim Delozier and the National Park Service did their best to care for the ones they could in hog traps behind the Park Headquarters Maintenance Yard, but he and Dr. Pelton knew they needed a better solution.
Without Dr. Pelton’s advocacy and professional credibility, the idea for the Appalachian Black Bear Rehabilitation and Release Center Inc.(our registered name with the IRS) would have never got off the ground in 1991. He was the first Vice-President of our Board of Directors and a long-time advisor to the board in the early years of the ABBRRC. He worked hand-in-hand with Kim Delozier (NPS), Rick Noseworthy (Board Co-President), Doug Scott (TWRA), our beloved Tom Faulkner, and Dr. Ed Ramsay (UTCVM) to ensure the facility would be built in a way that could provide adequate care for orphaned and injured bears with a very low risk of habituation.
We will be sharing a 1993 from "The Heartland Series" with Bill Landry that shows how Dr. Pelton was working with the NPS and TWRA biologists to create this better solution many years before our Townsend facility was constructed and opened its doors to Zero Bear in 1996. Since then, over 400 bears owe their second chance at life in the wild to “The Bear Man”.
We have already received many donations in Dr. Pelton’s memory and we thank all of you for honoring him and his family with your generosity.
Please read Dr. Pelton’s obituary here:
www.henryfuneralhome.net/obituaries/dr-michael-pelton ...
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🎥 RESCUING POPLAR BEAR 🎥
Early Thursday morning, this little bear cub 🐻 was found unconscious along Highway 321 in Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Cosby, Tennessee. The Gatlinburg Police Officer who found him suspected the little guy was hit by a vehicle.
With no mother bear in sight, his fate was uncertain. But before long, the cub began to stir—and showed he still had some fight left in him.
A National Park Service ranger rushed the cub to the University of Tennessee, where wildlife veterinarians found signs of a concussion and kept him overnight for observation.
Thankfully, by morning, his condition had improved enough to come to Appalachian Bear Rescue.
Meet Poplar Bear, a 25-pound orphaned male cub ABR now has recovering inside Hartley House, where curators are keeping a close eye on him.
For the first week, Poplar was still a little wobbly on his paws—but his appetite certainly hasn’t suffered. In fact, the first thing Lil Pop did on arrival was scarf down a bowl of formula before moving on to his fruit.
Listen to that trill!
Poplar isn’t out of the woods just yet, but his prognosis is good—and for now, this resilient little bear has exactly what he needs: nutritious food, peace and quiet, and time to heal.
Thank you to our partners for giving this little guy a second chance alongside us. And welcome to ABR, Poplar Bear 🐻 ...
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A few cents can make a BIG difference for bears! 🐻
Did you know you can help Appalachian Bear Rescue simply by rounding up your purchase to the nearest dollar while shopping at Walmart.com through their Spark For Good Round Up program!?
Follow these steps to get started:
1️⃣Visit walmart.com/sparkgood and sign in or create your Walmart account.
2️⃣Select Appalachian Bear Rescue as the charity you’d like to support.
3️⃣Every time you shop online at Walmart for pick-up, delivery or shipping, you can choose to round up and donate those extra cents to ABR—unfortunately, the Spark Good Round Up program is not available for in-store check out.
Every little bit helps ABR continue providing the specialized care, food and rehabilitation that orphaned and injured cubs need on their journey back to the wild! ...
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September 3, 2026 - Deep Clean Day!🪣🔥✅
We hope we aren't the only ones who can't believe it is September already!
As we rolled into a new month this week, curators came upon an event that was a first for ABR... Wild Enclosure Cleaning. Well, this is not entirely true because Wild Enclosures do, indeed, get cleaned. After every release, curators spend multiple days in each enclosure picking up scat, cleaning platforms, making repairs (we won't say who is responsible for needed repairs😉), and emptying and cleaning pools. This was typically a once or twice a year task because we never entered a Wild Enclosure that had bears in it, unless it was an emergency.
However, ABR staff is always interested in updating and improving the way things are done around the facility, and this new bi-weekly cleaning (every two weeks) of Wild Enclosures inhabited by cub chaos is on that list of improved protocols! Because cubs now have full-time access to two halves of a full acre of Wild Enclosure, this cleaning is possible.
First, curators have to get the cubs "closed off" to one of the halves of the Wild Enclosures. This means throwing breakfast over the fence and waiting for the cubs to "shift" over once they get a whiff of that wonderfully delicious Bear Diet! Once they are isolated to one side and busy squabbling over pears, the shift gates on the divider fence are shut and curators can get to work.
There were three main tasks to be completed during this enclosure "cleaning" including:
✅ picking up all piles of scat
✅ burning the spots where the scat was with a propane torch
✅ drain and clean and refill the cub pool
Curators Katrina, Seth and Tom volunteered to be on "scat duty", which turned out to be a lot more involved than originally anticipated. It was basically one big game of "I spy" for a few hundred objects across a half acre of space🔍😆. The curators should definitely know better by now that although cubs may be small in stature, they have a lot of presence (or presents?...). Once a scat pile was found, it was marked with a flag by Seth and then picked up Katrina and Tom. Greg followed behind these three detectives with a propane torch to burn the spot where the scat was to kill any potential bacteria or parasite eggs that may have been there. Talk about excitement!
While scat was being taken care of, Jaimie was busy draining, disinfecting and scrubbing the cub pool until it was squeaky clean! Even Sarah came over from the visitor center to play Curator for the day.
Due to the heat, Wild Enclosure 5 was completed yesterday and Wild Enclosure 6 was completed this morning. Each side took about two hours to fully clean. Luckily many hands make light work and this team made it look easy! While this was no small task, especially in 96 degree East TN heat, the ABR team is always happy to go above and beyond in the care of the cubs. Giving bears at our facility the best care possible is always our number one goal! Honestly, after the last year, it will probably take a while for Curators to start complaining about scooping scat, because scat means bears😉
🐻The five cubs outside in the Wild Enclosures are participating in plenty of cub chaos and thriving outside! Poplar Bear continues to be steady on his feet and his appetite doesn't show signs of slowing down. After receiving his full dose of deworming medications, curators are hoping to give him the boot outside to join the others in Wild Enclosures 5 & 6! ...
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🎥Behind the Scenes: ABR Cubs are First to Enter New Wild Enclosures🎥
Appalachian Bear Rescue is back with more behind the scenes footage to show the process behind transporting the first five cubs to enter the brand new Wild Enclosures 5 and 6. First up was Hemlock, our smallest resident in the Hartley House - and all it took to get him into a crate was "Special Seth Blueberries." Lead Curator Seth really is a wizard, y'all.
With the bait in place, it was time to get Hemlock into his carrier crate. Which, just like everything else at ABR, is always a team effort. Both the crate and Seth in place, Curator Katrina manned the shift gate and the Bear Cam to make sure little Hemlock took the bait. And sure enough, a hungry bear cub... is a hungry bear cub.
As you can see, Executive Director Greg is also on hand to provide full support to his team. After capture, each cub is weighed. And that's a common question we get: "How do you weigh a wild bear cub in the facility?" You have to know the weight of your crate on its own. Then, you weigh it again with the bear cub inside - and the difference is the bear cub's weight.
Of course, you have to capture said cub to weigh them, and as Redbud and Quince showed us up next, they were going to be a little bit harder than Hemlock. But when it comes to rescuing bear cubs, there's nothing this team can't do. Which is good! Because there's a whole lot of physical labor involved.
Soon enough, these three were off to the brand new Wild Enclosure 5 - which, alongside Wild Enclosure 6, was build through your support and generosity during the Cubs Forever Campaign (2025). And y'all, we have been so excited to share these exact moments with you.
Hemlock, Redbud, and Quince are now the first bear cubs to ever experience the brand new Wild Enclosures.
With these three little ones secure, it was time to get the big sisters into Wild Enclosure 6. Marsh and Wintergreen Bear were secured from our Red Roof Recovery Center, and then they were on their way down. Now all five cubs are together in WC 5 & 6.
After years of hard work and dedication, Appalachian Bear Rescue now has black bear cubs back in our Wild Enclosures. And we couldn't have done any of it without you.
Thank you, from all of us 🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻 ...
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August 31, 2026 - A Very Busy Poplar Bear🌳🐻
We are sure many of you have been wondering how ABR's newest cub resident, Poplar Bear, had fared over the weekend. We are happy to report that over the last few days, he has become steadier on his feet and is checking all of the "normal" cub behavior off of the UT vets' list. ✅
Friday afternoon into Saturday morning, Poplar did quite a bit of sleeping which is actually a very good thing when dealing with a head injury! Throughout the day on Saturday he ate all of his food and proved many times over that his plumbing was sufficiently working😁. In between these activities, there were plenty of naps to be had.
All day Sunday, Poplar continued to move around his room more and appeared much more steady on his feet. This morning, curators gave him access to two rooms in Hartley House and spent the morning giving him plenty of activities for enrichment🪵. It is clear that Poplar's nose is in great working order and the grapes and pear pieces hidden around the rooms stood no chance. We do have to admit that one uncommon thing occurred this morning during Poplar's feeding time - he went for his bowl of bear diet before he went for the formula🫢😉. Not to worry, no milk was left behind after a few short minutes! Who are we to judge a bear cub's breakfast consumption order of operations!?
The five cubs outside in Wild Enclosures are thriving! Between climbing and playing and eating and playing again, their days are filled up. Over the weekend we had a supporter generously donate a spotting scope for us to use in cub head counts and to take a few progress pictures and videos using a camera mount! Interestingly, we have seen all of the cubs in trees and most of the cubs jump into the cub pool, but we have yet to witness any cubs using the platforms. The good news is that destruction of objects in the Wild Enclosures 5 & 6 has currently been kept to a minimum, but we have no hopes that this pattern will continue.
🏃Reminder that our 11th Annual Bearly 5K is on October 31st. You can sign up for that HERE: appalachian-bear-rescue.myshopify.com/products/2025-bearly-5k-run-walk-registration-copy
If you'd like to support a specific cub's journey at ABR, you can symbolically adopt them HERE: appalachian-bear-rescue.myshopify.com/products/adopt-a-cub ...
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