That hungry, orphaned black bear cub that invited himself to Easter dinner in Habersham County is on his way to a new home in northwest Georgia.
“Bear capture was successful today. Thank goodness!” says Ann Sutton, who’s been keeping an eye on the cub ever since it showed up at her house unexpectedly.
Sutton’s video of the ravenous, scraggly cub eating from the cats’ dish on her porch has been viewed thousands of times. She followed up with a photo on Friday that showed the cub calmly sitting in a humane cage.
State Bear Biologist Adam Hammond set up the trap just a day earlier.
“I was so thankful it happened as quickly as it did,” says Sutton. “I’ve worried about the little guy and know he needed to be back in the wild pretty quickly.”
Sutton’s right. Bears become more vulnerable in the wild the longer they’re around humans. They become less fearful and lose their instinct to forage for food.
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A new home
Based on its small size, Hammond believes this bear cub was orphaned last fall.
“That bear should still be hanging out with his mother,” he said after first seeing the cub. “The fact that it’s not most likely means she’s not around.”
Hammond works for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division in Rome. He traveled across the state Thursday to lay out the traps at the Sutton home near Tray Mountain and returned Friday to pick up the cub.
“We’ll do what we can to put it as far away from civilization as possible,” he told Now Habersham.
According to Sutton, Hammond left with the cub and two locations in mind for its new home – both in the northwestern part of the state.
While it was somewhat sad to see the orphaned cub go, Sutton is also relieved.
“The experience has been exciting and scary at the same time,” she says, especially for her cats, whose outdoor feeding dish first attracted the cub to their home. After the bear took up residence, Sutton adjusted the cats’ feeding schedule to try and keep it away.
She says, “My cats are still quite mad about the whole situation.”
