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The director of an animal rescue charity in Chatham-Kent is calling on people to seek local support for injured wildlife after two men picked up a black bear cub in northern Ontario and took it on a 10-hour drive south in their vehicle.
The executive director of Chatham-Kent’s Pet and Wildlife Rescue Centre says her organization took care of the bear cub after it was found in the back of a van in Windsor.
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Myriam Armstrong says two men found the bear in the middle of the road while driving near Cochrane and decided to bring it to Windsor and said they fed the bear food from Taco Bell.
Armstrong says her team couldn’t see any obvious injuries to the four-month-old bear but the animal was lethargic and stressed after being in a vehicle for 10 hours.
Chatham-Kent’s Pet and Wildlife Rescue Centre kept the bear overnight on Saturday and its team contacted a bear rescue organization in Huntsville, after which a volunteer drove the bear halfway there and the other organization picked it up.
Armstrong says she is hopeful the bear is OK but people should seek local help if they encounter injured wild animals and not move them for long distances because that could lead to transferring diseases to new animal populations.
The Ministry of Natural Resources says black bears live throughout most of the province. Mature male black bears weigh an average of 90 kilograms but can weigh as much as 225 kilograms. “Bears are smart, curious, powerful and potentially dangerous,” the ministry says on its website.
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