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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2016
Idaho sanctuary prepares orphaned bear cubs for wild
maintain DeEulis’ vision, including
the difficult task of staying open to a
wide range of species.
“It is a sanctuary, but it’s a short-
term sanctuary,” said Carolyn Wal-
pole, the Snowdon board president.
“Our main mission is to get those ani-
mals back into the wild as soon as
they’re fit ... and show people that
wildlife should be respected.”
Snowdon operates off donations
and grants and uses its three resi-
dent birds — raptors that were unre-
leasable — for educational programs
throughout the region. Businesses
and residents in the McCall area often
donate unused produce, Elliott said,
which helps feed the bears.
Snowdon’s population varies
throughout the year but has included
bears, foxes, raccoons, squirrels,
deer, bobcats, badgers, owls, eagles,
hawks, falcons, many other birds —
even a cougar and some wolf pups.
The facility doesn’t handle adult deer,
adult predators or grizzly bears.
Raptors and bear cubs are the pri-
mary rehab animals statewide.
“Deer and elk do not rehab well,”
Berkley said. “Cougars do not rehab
well. When you get those types of
animals, you have to size up the situ-
ation on a case-by-case basis. ... Once
wild animals are adults, they do not
rehab well at all.”
By CHADD CRIPE
Idaho Statesman
McCALL, Idaho — Janell Carr
first met Mr. Cinnamon when the
black bear cub was eating out of her
bird feeder in Cascade. She and her
husband eventually startled the bear,
who climbed 80 feet up a tree in their
yard and took a nap.
Later that weekend, neighbors
found Mr. Cinnamon in their kitchen
sink. They left an upstairs window
open — and the cub climbed the deck
to get there.
Carr saw the bear again, walking
through her yard while she was sitting
on the deck.
“I didn’t know if I should feed him
or pet him or be afraid,” she said. “He
was a little guy. Everybody had seen
and heard of him.”
So the neighbors called Idaho
Fish and Game, which trapped the
bear and sent him to rehab — at the
Snowdon Wildlife Sanctuary outside
McCall. Snowdon rehabs all kinds of
animals and releases them back into
the wild but has become known for its
bear cubs.
Orphaned cubs
The orphaned cubs — almost
always less than a year old — are kept
in a naturally forested, 2-acre enclo-
sure. They’re fed dog food and pro-
duce, inspected to make sure they’re
healthy, given preventative medi-
cines and released into the wild fol-
lowing the fall or spring hunting sea-
son, depending on when they arrive
and how big they are.
The enclosure, which has huckle-
berry bushes, allows them to practice
the climbing and foraging skills they
need in the wild.
“It’s really neat to see them come
in as these tiny, little, cute fluffball
things and then by the time we catch
them again in the spring they look
like wild, adult bears,” said Mae-
ghan Elliott, Snowdon’s executive
director. “It’s really neat to be a part
of that transformation and be able to
help them and know that if they didn’t
have us, they might not be able to be
back in the wild.”
Snowdon rehabbed a facility-re-
cord 15 bears last winter, including Mr.
Cinnamon, who turned out to be more
than a year old but underweight when
he was rolling through that Cascade
neighborhood. The facility doesn’t
have any bears so far this winter.
Snowdon Wildlife Sanctuary Photos
Two bear cubs paw at a tree at the Sanctuary near McCall, Idaho.
Snowdon rehabs all kinds of animals and releases them back into the
wild but has become known for its bear cubs.
Snowdon takes bears from all
over the state and releases them in
spots isolated from towns and camp-
grounds. It also has a one-acre enclo-
sure that can be used to house out-of-
state bears.
The bears are caught by Idaho
Fish and Game — often after calls
from concerned citizens, or hunters
who inadvertently shot a mother —
and delivered to Snowdon. Hunters
aren’t allowed to shoot a female bear
“accompanied by young.” Fish and
Game usually won’t pick up a cub
based on an initial report; it asks peo-
ple to monitor the bear for a couple
days to make sure it’s orphaned.
“Typically we see more cubs when
we have a lot of fires in the area,” said
Regan Berkley, a regional wildlife
manager for Idaho Fish and Game
who is based in McCall. “Mom and
her cubs can get separated a little
more easily.”
Founded in ’80s
Snowdon was founded by Linda
DeEulis in the early 1980s. She was
approached by Fish and Game about
the possibility of keeping some young
cougars in her yard, before she started
the sanctuary, and declined. When
she learned the cougars were euth-
anized, DeEulis decided to start a
rehab facility.
She bought 35 acres off a dirt road
and next to the Lake Fork River — an
area blanketed with snow in the win-
ter and where sounds from the human
population are rare. Snowdon was
incorporated as a non-profit organiza-
tion in 1989.
DeEulis died in 2012. Since then,
the facility has been run by a volun-
teer board of directors. Elliott, a for-
mer college intern from Boise, was
hired two years ago and is the only
paid employee.
The board and Elliott have tried to
Tagged
Snowdon’s goal is to release all
of the animals it takes. The bear cubs
are tagged and subject to a one-strike
rule in the wild, Elliott said. If they
became problem bears, they will be
removed.
Only two Snowdon bears have
resurfaced, Elliott and Walpole said.
Both were shot by hunters, who
reported finding the tags.
Elliott, who lives on-site, and
other Snowdon crew members limit
noise when they have bear cubs. The
cubs are kept in a “catch cage” for a
couple days when they arrive to mon-
itor their health. Once they’re placed
in the bear enclosure, they’re left
alone except for twice-a-day feed-
ings. The crew also checks trail cam-
eras a few times a week to make sure
all the bears are accounted for and
seem healthy.
Perhaps Snowdon’s best-known
visitor was Boo Boo, a black bear cub
burned in a fire near Salmon in sum-
mer 2012 and released into the wild
in May 2013.
A black bear cub rests on a tree
limb at the Sanctuary in Idaho.
“They basically grow up being
a wild bear,” Elliott said. “... Every
once in a while a cub will get curious
(about the people). You can pick up
a stick (a foot long) and they’ll run.
They’re so terrified of us. Rarely do
we have any cubs who are too inter-
ested in what we’re doing.”
Cubs usually hibernate through
their first winter with their moth-
ers, which is why the orphans need a
rehab facility. They likely would die
on their own, Berkley said.
“There’s a biological trigger that
will make them hibernate,” Elliott
said. “If they aren’t heavy enough,
that won’t happen. They’ll continue
trying to find food in the winter and
they’ll freeze or starve to death.”
At Snowdon, with food readily
available, the cubs often nap for two
or three days and then awake to eat,
Elliott said. They sleep in trees, under
rocks, buried in the snow or in two
man-made shelters on the property.
Elliott is “super, super hands-off”
with the bears — which can be diffi-
cult for someone who enjoys animals.
“They are so cute,” she said. “But
I always keep in mind, if I do that, we
can’t release them. So that makes it
worth it for me.”
One of Walpole’s favorite Snow-
don success stories occurred earlier
this year. A young bobcat showed up
at Elliott’s door on the Snowdon prop-
erty in January. The next day, the bob-
cat was curled up in the roof of one of
the bird cages. Elliott and a caretaker
lured the malnourished kitten into one
of Snowdon’s cages, where it was fed
for a couple of months and released.
“It was almost like it knew where
to go (for help),” Walpole said. “It
really was amazing to all of us.”
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