ABR received a new little female cub, #229 nicknamed Chestnut Bear.  She was rescued in the Gatlinburg area after her mother and a sibling were killed in a traffic accident.  We have often said that we don’t know what happened to the mothers of our orphaned cubs, and that is true more often than not.  But as in the case of Cub #215 who came to us in August and was released in early November, when the mother is killed in a traffic accident, we do know.  Chestnut Bear is larger at admittance than any of the other cubs, but she is older and was with her mother until the unfortunate accident.  Chestnut weighed in at 19.5 pounds – still smaller than she would need to be to survive the winter alone.  Considering how poor the food in the wild has been this year, Chestnut’s mother did an amazingly good job of caring for her cubs.  Mother bears are like that.  They are protective and diligent about providing cubs with the best possible nutrition.  The only photo we have today is one taken when she was being examined at UT.  We’ll post additional photos as we can.

Cub 229, Chestnut Bear has her checkup.

Chestnut Bear does look larger in comparison to the recent arrivals, and seems to be healthy.  She just needs to gain weight.  At ABR,  she went directly into an outdoor acclimation pen.