The controlled burn of Wild Enclosures #1 and #2 was completed successfully. The final result was inspected by Spud Bear, in hard hat, at the conclusion of the burn.
As a “bearalegal,” Spud Bear came to check the results.
He certified that the curators had achieved their goal of 200 degrees, at 2 inches below the surface, ten minutes after the burn finished.
Because we know that you like to see actual bears, we are remembering a little bear, Carter Bear, who was in this enclosure after being rescued in Carter County, TN. It was June, 2015, and he was very undernourished and dehydrated, so much so that he walked in circles and weighed under thirteen pounds. It was quite possible that he had suffered brain damage, but he made a miraculous recovery,
Just a month later, Carter was thriving in the enclosure with other cubs.
Just before his release, Carter Bear was a handsome young bear. At release in November he weighed 77 pounds!
That wasn’t the end of his story, however. Former head-curator Coy Blair was conducting his study of bears who had been cared for at ABR and were collared with GPS collars for the study.
In February 2017, Coy was able to find the collar that had disengaged from Carter.
Coy found the den that Carter had used, in which was the collar (plus a few “tips”)
Here is a view of Carter’s den. He had survived the winter in 2015 and again in 2016! We were so glad to be able to confirm the survival of Carter and other former residents who were followed in Coy’s study. It has added immeasurably to the factual knowledge of bears in the Southern Appalachians.