I wrote about our pal Little Smokey the Bear last month. He’s the cub who was injured in the wildfires on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest last summer and has been in rehab under the loving attention of Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care. Well, good things are still happening for the now not-so-little guy:
Li’l Smokey is getting a li’l sleepy. The badly injured bear cub rescued from a California wildlife this summer is going into hibernation at a South Lake Tahoe rescue shelter.
His burnt paws have recovered enough that he is being released back into the wild this winter. The release could come in January or February. That way he’ll be ready to forage once he wakes up next spring.
“We do not want him becoming used to people,” Tom Millham of the wildlife center said. “And if he sees me coming, and he associates other people with me, when he’s out in the wild he is going to stay away from those people, which is definitely a good thing.”
Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care has taken excellent care of Li’l Smokey the Bear and several other bear cubs injured in the 2008 wildfires. Check out the excellent Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care blog that details the progress of the cubs.
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Great story – you’re right, “Li’l Smokey” doesn’t look so little!
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