running by the spring of this year<\/a>. It would be Nova Scotia\u2019s first bear rehabilitation centre and would serve orphaned black bear cubs before returning them to the wild.\u00a0<\/p>\nBut between site planning, receiving the green light by different government agencies and building the infrastructure, the timeline for opening the centre has been pushed back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI’d love to be able to break ground this fall,\u201d said Hope Swinimer, the founder of the group. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just don’t know how long the winter will hold off and how quick we can get permissions from all the different governing bodies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She added that, because the location of the centre is so remote, a road would have to be built to access it and electricity would have to be brought to the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a statement to CBC News, a spokesperson for the Department of Natural Resources said they\u00a0received an application to build a bear rehabilitation facility from Hope for Wildlife in April 2026. <\/p>\n
“We have been working with them to ensure the application meets all requirements necessary. Once an updated proposal is received,\u00a0we will communicate next steps with the applicant,” said the department. <\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789734975_92_default.jpg\")
Swinimer said the black bear cub facility has been a dream of hers for 20 years. (Hope for Wildlife)A dream 20 years in the making<\/p>\n
Swinimer said she has been working with bear cubs for a long time, and that having a dedicated space for them has always been her goal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s been a dream for 20 years and I’m so very excited that \u2026 it’s very close to happening,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The non-profit started a GoFundMe in December 2025 to help realize that goal and has raised over $500,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Swinimer said the undisclosed remote location in Cape Breton was chosen because it would give bears the least human interaction possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cubs can become habituated or even imprint on humans which Swinimer says puts the animals at risk and hurts their chances of successfully re-integrating in the wild.\u00a0<\/p>\n
MORE TOP STORIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-900438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900438","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=900438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n