{"id":559338,"date":"2026-03-25T08:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T08:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/559338\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T08:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T08:23:07","slug":"fur-suits-and-strange-masks-how-handlers-are-helping-orphaned-bear-cubs-after-monrovia-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/559338\/","title":{"rendered":"Fur suits and strange masks: How handlers are helping orphaned bear cubs after Monrovia attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

Call it survival of the fuzziest \u2014 with a strange twist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two orphaned black bear cubs from Monrovia, California are getting a second shot at life<\/a> \u2014 but the humans caring for them are going undercover \u2014 as bears.<\/p>\n

The roughly 3-month-old brothers were taken in by the San Diego Humane Society\u2019s Ramona Wildlife Center<\/a> after their mother was euthanized for public safety reasons following multiple encounters with people, officials said. <\/p>\n

The 3-month-old brothers were taken in by the San Diego Humane Society\u2019s Ramona Wildlife Center. Instagram\/San Diego Humane Society<\/p>\n

Two orphaned black bear cubs from Monrovia, California are getting a second shot at life \u2014 but the humans caring for them are going undercover \u2014 as bears. Instagram\/San Diego Humane Society<\/p>\n

Staff use bear masks, animal furs and scents to conceal their human identity during care.
\n San Diego Humane Society<\/p>\n

Now, instead of cuddles and bottle-feeding from smiling staffers, the cubs are being raised by caretakers decked out in bear masks, fur and even animal scents \u2014 all to trick them into staying wild.<\/p>\n

To avoid habituation, staff use bear masks, animal furs and scents to conceal their human identity during care according to the Times of San Diego<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s basically a real-life bear cosplay operation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The goal? Make sure these cubs don\u2019t grow up thinking humans equal food \u2014 a deadly lesson that likely doomed their mom.<\/p>\n

The cubs arrived at the facility on March 15 and are now under round-the-clock care. Instagram\/San Diego Humane Society<\/p>\n

San Diego Humane Society<\/p>\n

\u201cRaising bear cubs from this young age requires an extraordinary amount of time, expertise and resources,\u201d said Autumn Welch, wildlife operations manager at SDHS.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want them to associate with humans in any way if they are going to have a chance to survive in their natural habitat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cubs arrived at the facility on March 15 and are now under round-the-clock care, with handlers going to extreme lengths to keep interactions as natural \u2014 and anonymous \u2014 as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cSituations like this underscore the importance of prevention and shared responsibility,\u201d said Cort Klopping, an official with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.<\/p>\n

If all goes according to plan, the cubs will eventually be released back into the wild \u2014 hopefully with no clue that the \u201cbears\u201d who raised them ever walked on two legs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Call it survival of the fuzziest \u2014 with a strange twist. Two orphaned black bear cubs from Monrovia,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1442,49,3335,48,135403,9929,66,886,29875,323],"class_list":["post-559338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-bears","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-canada","tag-humane-society","tag-metro","tag-science","tag-us-news","tag-wild","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}