Curator Coy has wanted the four-month-old cub, Finnegan Bear, to have another bear for companionship.  As you know, Finnegan has a couple of stuffed animals with whom he plays, but a little bear really needs to be around others of his kind.  After we sadly lost the other little cub, Fergus, it appeared that Finn was going to be a singleton during his stay at ABR.  The yearlings in the Wild Enclosures (Milo, Skipper, Alonzo and Wily)are much too big to be introduced to the cub.  Our newest arrival, Lucinda Bear, is a much smaller yearling, and as a female should be less boisterous, so Coy decided to try a gradual introduction of the two of them.  First he did some remodeling of The Cub House/Acclimation Pen setup.

Curator Coy works on the remodeling of The Cub House door system.

He had to be sure the roof fencing was secure!

The bars will allow the two bears to see each other before they are actually together.

With the modifications in place, Coy moved Lucinda Bear into The Cub House.  Finnegan is out in the  adjacent Acclimation Pen.

She has a climbing log to use to get up to the platform.

She can climb up and down at will.

Cherries were very well received in The Cub House and out in the Acclimation Pen.

Finnegan was too quick to have a good photo taken of him!

Finnegan scooted out of range of the camera. We can see his tail end.

He climbed into his water dish. We can see both ends of him, but not the middle.

Coy is going to watch carefully to see what (if any) reaction there is and hopefully he will be able to introduce them to each other soon.

Here is what the setup looks like from inside The Cub House.

This is one room of The Cub House, showing how it is configured.

Stay tuned – this should be very interesting!