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Bear cub injured by train put down

Tough decision to euthanize splits bear lovers The government’s decision to put down the blue-eyed bear cub, dubbed J.J. Bear for two short days, has sparked debate over the treatment of injured black bears.

Tough decision to euthanize splits bear lovers

The government’s decision to put down the blue-eyed bear cub, dubbed J.J. Bear for two short days, has sparked debate over the treatment of injured black bears.

"The human thing to do is to send him to rehab. The bear thing to do is to put him down," said local black bear researcher Michael Allen, who recommended to vets that the cub be euthanized after his right front paw was torn apart by a passing train in Pemberton.

Still, looking at the cute little face, just six months new to the world, it was an emotional decision for everyone involved, he said.

The bear’s paw was run over by a train on Wednesday, June 12. A local man scared the mother away and peeled the cub’s paw of the track. The tiny cub was then taken to a campground, the RCMP called and its paw bandaged in expectation that it could be released into the wild.

But when the bandages were removed the next day the damage was obviously more severe than first believed. Bone, nerves and muscle were exposed.

By the time local vets saw the cub the day after the accident his tongue and gums were pale, a sign he had lost a lot of blood.

The damage was so severe that J.J. Bear would most likely have lost his leg and had to go through extensive rehabilitation over a period of two to three years.

There was a rehab centre in Smithers, the Northern Lights Wildlife Centre, which was willing to accept the cub and care for him for a year but this course of action goes against government policy.

After looking at that policy, John Van Hove, head of Fish and Wildlife Science and Allocation Section at the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection, made the decision to put the bear cub down.

"It’s our view that no bears can be rehabilitated back to the point where they can be successfully introduced back into the wild if they’ve had extensive human contact," he said.

This particular bear also had extensive injuries which would greatly reduce the odds of his survival, he added.

But for the handful of people, who nursed the cub, it was a devastating decision.

"It was unbelievably heart-wrenching," said Sylvia Dolson, executive director of the J.J. Whistler Bear Society, still trying to fight back the tears days later as she remembered the little bear cub, who was no bigger than her tubby cat.

"It’s just tearing me apart."

Now she wants to ensure that future situations like J.J. Bear’s will not have similar outcomes.

The society is calling for all orphaned cubs to be suitable candidates for rehab, even if they have been conditioned to human food sources or to humans or if they have non-life threatening injuries, like a missing leg.

And they want to eliminate the policy that requires post-rehab monitoring, which costs a lot of money.

In the case of J.J. Bear, the ministry asked for a bond of $10,000 before the cub could even be considered for rehab. This would cover the costs of monitoring it for two years.

Dolson said they were able to raise that money and more – in little more than 24 hours – but to no avail. The story of little J.J. Bear tugged at the heartstrings of many late last week.

Dolson said her phone was ringing off the hook with hundreds of concerned residents who were looking at ways to donate money to raise the $10,000.

B.C. Rail pledged $5,000 and about $6,000 was raised independently through online donations, directly into a bank account or through cheques in the mail.

Still all the money in the world couldn’t save the bear cub.

Looking back over J.J. Bear’s outcome, Dolson said the government put them up against a wall.

"The ministry, no matter what we did, kept throwing us another hoop to jump through," she said.

The final government decision was based on the fact that with such extensive human contact after rehab and with a gimpy leg, the odds of that cub’s survival in the wild were relatively low and his life would have been very hampered.

In that respect, bears who are injured are poor candidates for rehabilitation because they lose their fear of humans.

Allen, who is heavily involved in bear education and research in Whistler, agreed with the decision to euthanize.

"I look at the little guy and understand what he’s going to go through in the future," he said, remaining objective in the face of such an emotional decision.

Rather than concentrate efforts and money on one black bear, Allen said the funds can be used in other areas.

"We can spend that money on proactive management rather than reactive management," said Allen, who believes that money could go to better bear education.

In retrospect, the bear should have been left to fend for himself in the wild, with the help of his mother.

It was only a single cub and the mother would have had an opportunity to give it a lot of attention and could have licked the wound clean, said Allen.

But the local man who scared the mother away and peeled the cub’s paw off the track believed he was acting in the cub’s best interests.

Dolson said she cannot condemn anyone’s actions in this case, barring the provincial government.

"I do not believe the government acted in the best interests of this individual bear," she said.

She is now urging people who believe rehabilitation is the answer to contact Joyce Murray, minister of Water, Land and Air Protection, to get the policies changed.

"This goes way beyond this one little cub’s life," she said, calling the government’s policies archaic.

"We can’t be in this position again."