SPRUCEDALE, Ont. — Three tiny bear cubs from Northwestern Ontario have lost their home and their mother, but they are in good hands at the Bear With Us sanctuary, just east of Parry Sound.
The two-month-old animals were accidentally orphaned on March 10th during a timber harvesting operation in the Dryden area.
"They had piled up some logs that had been cut, probably, last fall. And they went in with heavy machinery to pick up that bundle, when a mother bear ran away. She appeared to have been denned under the logs," said Mike McIntosh, founder and president of the Bear With Us Centre for Bears.
He said two Ministry of Natural Resources wildlife technicians and a conservation officer used a a drone with a heat-seeking infrared unit to try to locate the mother the next morning.
They also bundled the cubs in blankets and left them in a box surrounded by bottles of warm water to see if the sow would return.
"Then they did it all over again until later in the afternoon. And they hoped that with the cubs crying they would attract her if she was still in the area," McIntosh said.
When those efforts failed, a decision was made to send the cubs to his sanctuary.
McIntosh said the ministry arranged to have them flown from Dryden to Sault Ste. Marie where he picked them up and drove them to Sprucedale.
The bears are all males, and have been named Oscar, Oliver and Ozzie.
The sanctuary reported in a Facebook post Tuesday "they are in a good routine of eating, playing time and sleeping. Oliver and Ozzy are teething already."
When they were weighed on Sunday, they ranged from 2.53 to 2.86 pounds, with Oscar being the lightest.
"So they're all under three pounds. That's about normal for a two-month-old cub," McIntosh said.
"Because they're young, and they've only been here a matter of days, it will be stressful right now. So in a couple of weeks, we'll be much more sure, but I think they will survive, yes."
The trio will remain at the sanctuary until next summer when they will be returned to the Dryden area.
Since its founding 33 years ago, the Bear With Us centre has cared for over 800 bears that have been returned to the wild.
It currently has 61 on the property.
The sanctuary is a registered charity and depends on donations from the public, as it receives no government funding.