In this post we report on two more yearlings released within the last week.  Linus Bear and Otis Bear went back into the wild on April 14th.  This is a very short post, because there were only two individuals involved with the workup and release, which made it impossible to take photos during the workup time.  So our photos will just show each of the little bears when they arrived and shortly before they left.

Linus Bear arrived at ABR in November 2015 weighing 16.5 pounds.  He was very much underweight for a ten-month-old bear, but his exam at the UTCVM showed him to be reasonably healthy.

Linus at UT in November, when he weighed just 16.5 pounds.

Linus grew! At release he weighed 71 pounds!

Here is a recent photo of Linus Bear that shows how he had grown.

Otis Bear didn’t come to ABR until January.  He was a year old, and weighed just 26.6 pounds.

Otis was examined at UTCVM in January.

When Otis Bear was worked up for release, he weighed 85 pounds!  Quite a weight gain in just under 3 months.

A recent photo of Otis Bear, showing how he looks now.

We are sure that you can picture the workup process in your mind by now – the measuring, the vet’s exam, the checking of teeth, temperature, pulse, paws, fitting of the GPS collar, and loading into the truck for transport back to the wild.  We hope for long lives for these yearlings, and plenty of wild foods to eat.  Goodbye to Linus and Otis Bear!