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Wildlife
Mom, three cubs rescued from tree It was a tricky rescue for Conservation officers on Wednesday. They had to use bear bangers, ropes, tarps and tranquilizers to get four bears once captured in Burnaby out of a Lee Avenue tree. Now they get one last shot at staying out of urban areas. by Scott McKenzie editorial@mrtimes.com
M
aple Ridge Conservation officers rescued a mother black bear and her three cubs from a tree in a backyard on Lee Avenue Wednesday. The rescue brought out the entire neighbourhood, as tranquilized bears were laid out on a front lawn before being loaded into a special container. That gave people of all ages a chance to touch the bears and take video and photographs. Conservation officer Terry Myroniuk estimated the mother bear weighed more than 250 pounds. The mother bear had previously been found in Burnaby in 2008, and Myroniuk said “generally the bears don’t get another chance if they’re caught twice, but we made an exception because she had three cubs with her.” The mother bear was relocated 100 kilometers away from Burnaby but had returned to the area. The four bears had to be tranquilized because they weren’t coming down from the tree voluntarily. After the mother bear and one cub had come down, Conservation officers lit off “bear bangers” in an attempt to scare the remaining two cubs in hopes they would come down. The “bear bangers” caused the two cubs to come halfway down the tree, but were then tranquilized. Normally, Conservation officers would hold a tarp above the ground under the tree in order to catch the bears after tranquilization, but these bears had become stuck in the branches. Since they were stuck, the officers needed to climb the tree and tie up the bears (separately) in order to rope them down with a pulley system. Myroniuk said they weren’t
(Above) Three Conservation officers got help from a Lee Avenue resident to haul out the mother bear Wednesday. Scott McKenzie/TIMES A tarp was used in case one of the tranquilized cubs fell out of the tree. Ray Post photo
worried about the bears being severely injured from a fall because there were so many branches that they would hit on the way down. He said that the cubs had been found this past spring, but at that time they were too small to tranquilize without risking their lives. See BEARS, Page 3
Watch the full rescue in our slideshow at www. mrtimes.com.
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