A Rare Sight: Grizzly Bear Cubs Coming To Washington

EATONVILLE, WA - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark apparently named the grizzly bear to describe the type of death you would experience if you ever met one. Two grizzlies will soon arrive at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park near Eatonville, but they appear far from killers.

That's because one is a six-month-old fuzzball, the other a slightly older but still precious yearling. The bears - the cub from Alaska, the yearling from Montana - are orphans. Their mothers were killed by humans.

This is the first time in at least 20 years that the public will have a chance to see such young bears. Keema and Denali, the brown bear (that's the preferred name, by the way) brothers at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, arrived in 1994 just before their first birthday.

Virtually the only way to see a brown bear in Washington is at a zoo. The bears are endangered in Washington, with about 10 living along the Canadian border in the North Cascades and a few more near the Idaho panhandle.

The federal government wants to reintroduce brown bears in the North Cascades, an area they once roamed freely. However, U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Yakima, last week blocked money for the effort in a House appropriations bill. The bear reintroduction could still get funding from the Senate, however.

Although having the young bears at Northwest Trek will be exciting for Western Washington wildlife lovers, the bears are coming here because of tragedy.

The cub was found near death from starvation in western Alaska weighing just 10 pounds. The cub's mother was killed illegally by a hunter. The Alaska Zoo in Anchorage took custody of the orphan, feeding him a steady diet of cherries, dog chow, and fish. He now weighs a healthy 75 pounds.

“He’s funny,” Alaska Zoo curator Shannon Jensen said of the cub. “He has no trouble playing by himself. He finds whatever toys we give him entertaining, even if it’s just a stick. He thinks a stick is great fun.”

The yearling was found on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, just east of Glacier National Park. The bear's mother was shot and killed after she apparently attacked a farmer's hogs.

Each bear would've died in the wild without a mother to teach them how to find food and avoid danger. They will now live the rest of their lives in human custody. Northwest Trek officials hope the two bears will become like brothers, with the older bear hopefully passing some knowledge down to the cub.

You won't be able to see the young bears right away. They will first take time to get used to their new one-acre forested home inside the park. The bears have not been named yet, and Northwest Trek will eventually open that process up for a public vote.

Photo by John Gomes/Alaska Zoo, courtesy Northwest Trek