Mama And Two Baby Bears Saved From A Culvert (Photos)

Photos used in this story are with the permission of Libby Lord Photography.

In the past few weeks, there has been a real uptick in bear sightings, we had one at our house in Lanesborough where the bear was taller than my six-foot-one-inch hubby on the porch, taking out the garbage which I think the bear had the same idea, except his way of taking out the garbage is out of the can and is usually a mess!!

I spoke with Lorna who works at the Lanesborough town hall she said she had one come to her neighborhood, and three other people in the area pretty much said the same thing.

If you were wondering, there has been an uptick in bears as far as population goes. There has been an increase in bears every year for a while now.

There was a bit of excitement yesterday in Simsbury it was not your regular sighting, this was a sighting and a saving when a mama bear and her cubs were discovered in one of the storm drains on a residential street.

Of course, the mama bear was scared for her babies, she was crying throughout the night, and lots of the neighbors heard her cry for help.

It turned into a busy place with officers from Simsbury Police, The State Environmental Conservation Police, and State Biologists from DEEP there.

Keith Bona( aka Mayor of Main St North Adams) said:
They decided to lift the grates over two of the storm drains and assess whether she might come out, but as they did, she traveled further down the pipe to another drain. They decided to take off that grate, and put in a board and a ladder hoping she'd try to make her way out with the cubs.

So the men moved the board, ladder, and log into the storm drain nearest to her to see if that would do the trick. They kept checking on her. But the DEEP Biologists did not give up.

Due to due diligence on the parts of everyone who was helping, it paid off. Everyone backed off then the momma's head popped up!  Then she climbed out, took a look around, and went back to encourage the cubs to come out too.

The first cub climbed up and out and moved by a nearby tree, then momma went to get cub #2.

Momma made sure the whole family was together.
Off they went a lot happier.

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