Heart-wrenching cries could be heard from a black bear cub calling for its mother, who just days ago was raising her three cubs, in a den just north of Balmoral. The mother bear was fatally shot on Tuesday.
The cubs are now in the care of Black Bear Rescue Manitoba, which says it believes that the incident stemmed from two social media posts from two weeks back.
“The posts with the locations were circulating, and she was a sitting duck,” said Judy Stearns, the president and owner of Black Bear Rescue Manitoba.
Stearns says when she first saw the posts, she knew it wouldn’t end well.
“My biggest fear was that someone who was malicious and didn’t like bears and was fearful of that bear being in the area would go and shoot her, 100 per cent that was my first thought. Every morning when I woke up, I was checking my messages and waiting for a phone call that something would happen, and it took 11 days, and my biggest fear happened,” she explained.
CityNews spoke reached out over Facebook to one of the people who posted the location named Maegan, who asked not to use her last name. She says the post was not intended to draw attention to the bear or harm it, but simply to make people aware so they can be safe, as many people walk and drive quads and snowmobiles along the road. She adds that she would never want to see an animal shot just because, especially when rearing young.
However, Stearns says denned mothers bear with cubs rarely pose any threats to humans.
“I think before people go online and make statements on something that they’re not really fully understanding, I wish people would do a simple Google search on how dangerous black bears are, or females with cubs, or call us, or call natural resources, or speak to someone, or get some information,” said Stearns.
Here in Manitoba, it is illegal to shoot a mother bear with its cubs. Minister of Natural Resources Ian Bushie says conservation officers are investigating.
“Well, it’s terrible, I mean nobody should be doing that, especially a mother with three young ones. We talk about responsible hunting in Manitoba, and that’s irresponsible, so to be able to do that, we condemn that, and the investigation is ongoing, but we’re hoping that we can lead to the apprehension of the person responsible,” said Bushie.
In the meantime, the cubs will stay at Black Bear Rescue over the summer and will be rehabilitated and released into the wild this fall.
“We’ve dealt with cubs like this before, and we’ll get them over their trauma, but it’s just really unfortunate that this happened. It would be much better if these cubs were still with their mother in the wild,” said Stearns.
Black bear cub at Black Bear Rescue Manitoba. (Courtesy: Black Bear Rescue Manitoba)