As we promised, this post is about the last releases during the week of April 11th.  Today we share the release of Joy and Rufus Bear.   Rufus Bear arrived in November 2015, weighing just 9 pounds at the age of 10 months.  To illustrate how needy the little cubs were, our 2016 cub, Finnegan Bear, is just 3 months old and weighs about 10 pounds now!  Rufus was a very malnourished little cub when he arrived at ABR.  Here are a few photos that show how he grew.

Rufus was very underweight as a 10-month-old cub.

Rufus was in an Acclimation Pen to get stronger.

His next stop was in The Cub House in late November.

In December Rufus was in the Wild Enclosure.

Rufus looked much larger by January.

He was one of the “buffalo bears” in his winter coat in March.

April 14, 2016 was release day for Rufus.

Rufus weighed 62.5 pounds on release day!

Rufus Bear was loaded on the truck to go to his release.

Joy Bear was released on April 14th also.  Joy had arrived in January at the age of 12 months, weighing 11 pounds.  She, too, was very underweight and malnourished.

Joy went into the Wild Enclosure after a short time in an Acclimation Pen.

It was easy to take her photo when she had just been released into the Wild Enclosure.  She set out to explore the new space.

Joy explored her new enclosure.

After that it became much harder to recognize her among the furry residents of her enclosure.  We don’t have many photos of Joy that are identifiable.

This photo, taken in March, was positively identified as Joy Bear.

Joy Bear was worked up for her release on April 14th. She weighed 50.5 pounds!

After the workup, here is Joy Bear in the truck, ready to go.

The release of these two yearlings brought the number of releases to 18!  There are now just 8 yearlings in Wild Enclosures at ABR and 1 cub in The Cub House.  We hope for long, happy lives in the wild for all of the released bears as they run free in their natural habitat.