Wildlife refuge offers to shelter orphan grizzlies

CanWest News Service
Monday, August 22, 2005

CALGARY -- A wildlife refuge says it could shelter three orphan grizzly cubs while they mature and then possibly become the first organization to successfully reintroduce captive grizzlies back into the wild.

The cubs have been on their own since their mother, a 10-year-old sow known as Bear No. 66, was hit by a freight train Friday while feeding on berries on the Canadian Pacific Railway line about eight kilometres east of Castle Junction, Alta.

Parks Canada has decided to leave the cubs where they are and monitor their progress living in the wild.

But the director of the Kicking Horse Mountain Grizzly Bear Refuge says the cubs may be too young to survive on their own. Kicking Horse, near Golden, is the world's largest enclosed protected grizzly bear habitat.