Bear rescue upset Manitoba cubs to be released without tracking collars

The woman who helped establish Black Bear Rescue Manitoba is calling the province's decision to release three black bear cubs without tracking collars "cowardly" and "irresponsible."

The three orphaned cubs are to be released shortly from the rescue near Stonewall, Man.

"I think [the government is] worried because they are the only ones going to be doing fall release," says rescue spokeswoman Julie Woodyer. "If something happens and it fails they will look bad. And I think that that, personally, is cowardly."

The idea of a fall release is controversial in Canada. 

Alberta was planning to release two cubs this fall, but their government reversed the plan in the face of public pressure and concerns from the rescue looking after them. The Alberta cubs will now stay in the rescue until spring.

Woodyer says when she and Judy and Roger Stearns — the Stonewall couple who care for the bears — had their initial meetings with the government about establishing a rescue,  it was clear Manitoba only wanted fall release. 

"They did not want bears to be over-wintered," said Woodyer, who is also campaigns manager for Zoocheck, an animal welfare group.​ "We said 'OK, that's trickier because nobody's doing that, but let us see what we can do.'"

Woodyer and the Stearns decided that the rescue would only be built if international bear expert John Beecham agreed that a fall release was OK. He said it was being done in some places outside of Canada and agreed to write a protocol for it. 

Part of that protocol involves monitoring of the bears after release. And while ear tags provide passive monitoring, in a report Beecham writes that GPS collars — while expensive — provide much more detailed and valuable information.

Woodyer says the province told her it had no money for the collars, so the rescue — a licensed charity — went ahead and spent a total of $7,000 on the three collars from a company called Lotek Wireless Inc.

She says the information they could provide is vital.

"We would know how far they travelled before they went into hibernation, we would know if they get up and move at all during the normal hibernation season ... and actually we would find out if they died because you get a death signal from the collar," she says. 

She said initially, her contact in Sustainable Development agreed that the data from the collars would be valuable and add to the limited body of knowledge on bear releases.

But she says things turned sour recently when the collar company said that the rescue, as the purchasers of the collars, would be the ones getting the data. Woodyer says the rescue offered to give the province a log-in code so it could see the data in real time, and even offered to sign a confidentiality agreement not to release the data. 

"It's like they completely switched gears. All of a sudden it was too complicated, too much trouble to use the collars," says Woodyer.

Manitoba Sustainable Development declined an interview on the collars and fall release, but sent a statement, commending the rescue for raising the cubs to be big and strong. 

"Manitoba and the rehab facility both support gathering information on rehabilitated cubs post-release. However no animal should be subjected to a relatively invasive procedure like GPS collaring without clear scientific research purposes," the statement said. 

"Unfortunately, collar details could not be worked out prior to releasing this year's cubs. The three cubs will be ear-tagged prior to release, and these unique markers will allow for passive monitoring and facilitate identifying the bears if they happen to come into a human-wildlife conflict situation in the future."

Woodyer isn't buying that statement. She says the province completely "changed the narrative" when it learned the rescue would have access to the data too.

"The idea that it's risky, or invasive, is completely disingenuous in my opinion and I believe they know that because the week before they were happy to do it. And as I said they're doing it with other species including polar bear cubs," she said. 

She says it's not about pointing fingers if things go wrong; she realizes that bears in the wild can die for a number of reasons. But she says it isn't responsible to release the bears with no real way of knowing what's happening with them. 

Compounding her frustration, said Woodyer, is that Manitoba Sustainable Development isn't allowing the rescue to take part in the release of the bears — a common practice in other provinces.

Rescue formed after Makoon controversy

Black Bear Rescue Manitoba hosted its first cubs this spring, but was born out of a 2012 controversy when the province released a cub named Makoon. He was estimated to be about five months old. Judy Stearns helped organize a rally to protest Makoon's release, saying he was too young to survive.

Manitoba did not have a centre authorized to prepare orphaned bears for the wild, however, and the bear was eventually set free. His fate is not known.

The Stearns got in contact with Woodyer, who is campaigns manager for Zoocheck and has experience with other bear rescues. They were determined to work together to fill the need. The province issued an operations permit earlier this year. The centre got a $50,000 boost from former Price is Right star Bob Barker, a longtime supporter of Zoocheck.

These days the Stearns have been gradually preparing the bears — Bobbi, Alvin and Ayla — for release, which will likely happen very soon. The bears' food supply is being lessened to trigger their bodies to soon go into hibernation. The bears are estimated to be about nine months old.

Woodyer says by not allowing the tracking collars, or allowing the rescue to participate in the release, the province has now taken away the rescue's "comfort level" with the fall release.

"It's very clear to me it's in the best interest of the bears, the best interest of the program and it's in the best interest of the government and the public for us to properly monitor those bears," she said. "Not doing it is just a case of it being an irresponsible decision."

Woodyer says she hopes Minister of Sustainable Development Rochelle Squires will sit down with her staff and find a way to put the collars on the bears.