FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Three orphaned bear cubs will be euthanized unless Alaska wildlife officials can find homes for them.
The 1-year-old cubs became orphaned when their mother was illegally killed in the Interior community of Galena, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.
Alaska Fish and Game spokeswoman Cathie Harms said they are looking for homes for three cubs, but it’s difficult because there’s little demand for black bears at zoos and other licensed facilities.
“We have been looking to see where those cubs could go,” she said. “It’s very, very difficult. Black bears are not highly rare like pandas; they breed very well in captivity. If someone’s had black bears in the past they probably still have them. To this point we have been unsuccessful.”
Fish and Game estimates there are 100,000 black bears in Alaska, and hunters and trappers legally take about 3,250 every year.
Galena, with a population of about 470 and located 300 miles west of Fairbanks, is part of a game management unit that allows hunters to take three bears annually.
However, unless it’s done in defense of life or property, state game regulations prohibit hunters from killing sows with first-year cubs, which hibernate with the sow and are unlikely to survive their first winter without her.
The kill was reported on Sept. 16. The sow was killed along the dike that separates Galena’s old town neighborhood from the new town site.
Galena-based Alaska Wildlife Trooper Darrell Hildebrand is investigating the illegal kill.
“No one fessed up to it (killing the sow),” he said. “I’ve put some feelers out in the village trying to get some leads. The leads I got did not go anywhere.”
Hildebrand said it’s unusual for someone in Galena to take a bear without telling others why it was killed.
“People are concerned about it obviously,” he said. “People want to know who took it and why.”
He said the bear population is healthy in Galena, and black bears have been prominent along the drainages, eating high bush cranberries, currants and rose hips.
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