Photo by Patrice Kohl, Redoubt Reporter. Two orphaned brown bear cubs at Captain Cook State Recreation Area wander the beach and scavenge for hooligan during a low tide June 9.
Patrice Kohl
Redoubt Reporter
As park hosts at Captain Cook State Park, Don and Ila Weed are used to seeing youngsters play around outside, but they were caught off guard this spring when they saw two brown bear cubs playing with children’s toys in Campsite 18. The Weeds first saw the orphan cubs in June 2008, but the cubs have become more brazen this year, taking naps on the campground’s road and getting into mischief, like when they chewed a sewage pipe on the Weeds’ camper.
So far the cubs have shown no sign of aggression toward humans, but wildlife managers are concerned about the cubs’ comfort level around people and are watching them closely. Wildlife and park managers hope efforts to keep visitors’ food and garbage out of the cubs’ reach will discourage them from hanging out around the park and park campground. They may also use hazing tactics to chase them off, including shooting the cubs with rubber bullets and cracking shells over the cubs’ heads.
The cubs are more than a year old and have stuck together since the sow disappeared about a year ago. It’s not uncommon for orphaned cubs to stick together for some time after having lost their mother. Even cubs that haven’t been orphaned but have been weaned from the sow will sometimes continue to stick together for an additional season or two. In some cases, weaned cubs will even den together. As they grow older they usually separate bit by bit, with males tending to leave for new territory and the females staying behind.
If the Captain Cook orphan cubs cannot be discouraged from loitering in the park and campground, they may be captured and sent to zoos. But finding zoos willing to take cubs that are more than a year old can be difficult, said Jeff Selinger, Kenai Peninsula area biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Soldotna.
Zoos typically want cubs-of-the-year, because they are easier handle, train and can grow up accustomed to people in the zoo. Selinger said he is aware of at least one zoo in the Lower 48 that might be interested in taking a brown bear cub, but he does not yet know if they would be willing to take a cub that is more than a year old. If the bears cannot be discouraged from hanging out around Captain Cook State Park, become too brazen and no zoo will take them, then they may need to be put down, he said.
Moving the cubs to another wilderness area is not a likely option, Selinger said. Trying to move problem bears to other wilderness areas almost always fails because the bears tend to find their way back to human-occupied areas and cause trouble in their encounters with humans.
So far, resourcefulness appears to be keeping the cubs in good health, as Fish and Game and the campground hosts hope they soon move on and continue to thrive in new territory. Don Weed said he didn’t know how the cubs had been keeping themselves fed and said he was surprised to see they had survived the winter when he and his wife returned to the park this spring.
On June 9, a day when the tides were particularly low, people visiting Captain Cook State Park to see the beach’s exposed boulders and collect agates were joined by the cubs, who wandered out of the woods and onto the exposed flats to collect stranded hooligan. The grassy-green scat the cubs left behind on the beach suggested the stranded hooligan offered the cubs a unique treat.
The Mouth of The Kenai 