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SITKA, ALASKA
“A local Angoon resident saw the bear walking up the street and looked around and didn’t see a sow,” said Phil Mooney, area wildlife biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish & Game. “It’s a pretty small animal, 12 to 14 pounds, so he went and picked it up and put it in a kennel.”

Angoon village public safety Sgt. Charlie Hatzell took custody of the cub while residents searched for the sow. When she wasn’t located, Mooney says the cub was flown to Sitka aboard Harris Air, and now is being tended to at Fortress of the Bear. In the meantime, officials will search for a home for the cub at a zoo or institution.

Usually, Fish & Game’s policy is that a bear must have a home waiting for it before officials will pick it up. But in this case, the bear was in town and people were about to intervene, so Fish & Game decided to act.

“Just trying to buy it some time, and currently through the department there are no zoos or facilities that are permitted that have requested bears,” Mooney said. “In fact the department has a bear that has been sitting at the Alaska Zoo in a holding situation for a year because the facility that was going to take it backed out at the last moment.”

Mooney says it’s not uncommon for cubs to be orphaned every year, for a variety of reasons, whether it’s because the sow has been killed by humans or have simply strayed off or been killed by another bear.
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