On August 8, ABR welcomed two more rescued bear cubs – #274 & #275, nicknamed Ruff and Tumble Bear.  The two brothers were rescued after it was found that they had been feeding on trash.  As we know, “Garbage kills bears,” which may be trite but is very true.  The wildlife officers had been alerted to a female bear (the cubs’ mother) getting into trash and they trapped her, relocated her and released her in another area.  Unfortunately, they did not realize she had cubs until too late.  The two cubs are six months old, like Viola, Willow and Bosco Bear.  They are too young to survive on their own, so they were brought to ABR.

They were transported to the UT College of Veterinary Medicine for their initial checkup and were pronounced healthy, weighing 29 and 19 pounds.

One of the two new cubs at UT.

The brothers had good checkups.

Curator Coy transported the cubs to ABR, with the usual worm meds to take for a few days.  The cubs are in the Acclimation Pen that overlooks Wild Enclosure 4, where Bosco, Willow and Viola are residing.

Ruff and Tumble get used to their new quarters.

There is a noticeable size difference between the cubs.

Ruff is the larger of the two.

Hopefully it won’t take them long to adjust .

Welcome to these new cubs.  It is sad that they couldn’t stay with their mother, but we are sure that they will soon be buddies with the other three cubs.  Stay tuned.