| BEAR ESSENTIALS
En route to a Russian wilderness
A team of veterinarians from the Wildlife Trust of India trained at the Orphan Bear Rehabilitation Center in Russia last month. Murali Pai, who brought back some expertise shares bear facts on life at the IFAW sponsored center.
I am in a well-furnished log cabin in Bubonitsa, as I peck away on a borrowed laptop. It is springtime but still freezing out here. The weather is least on my mind. I am thinking about the bear that has brought me on a one-month training program to Russia . Two other trainees have arrived from India – one is Chukku Loma, Project Leader-Centre for Bear Rehabilitation and Conservation (CBRC) and the other is Prasanta Boro, Veterinarian- CBRC. I flip through notes jotted in my dateless diary and choose some excerpts.
We heard them before we saw them
 A nervous grunt, a hum of contentment, a bawl in pain, a bleat to summon young amidst the cacophony of animal sounds that greeted us – it would be difficult to make out the animal causing the ruckus – if one did not know this beforehand.
Loma and I were in front of a wooden hut, 2.5x3x6 meters in a forest enclosure in Chisty les, and when Sergey Pazhetnov opened the door, out tumbled 6 brown bear cubs sniffing and scurrying for the food we had brought for them. We had just arrived at the Orphan Bear Rehabilitation Center (OBRC) – an IFAW funded Center in village Bubonitsa, 15 km from Thorpets town, 450 km from Moscow . The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is the most widely distributed of all bears in the world. Its worldwide population was estimated at 206,500- second highest to the American black bear. The OBRC is located in Chisty Les (clean forest) – an extension of Zapovednik “Tsentralno-Lesnoy” (Central-Forest State Nature Biosphere Reserve) in Central Russia .
Deduced from the Russian word ‘Zapoved’ (biblical commandment), the idea came about early in the 20th Century when Russian scientists proposed the protection of areas where nature would be left to its own processes. Founded in 1931, the Zapovednik is 150 km from the OBRC and has an area of 24.5 thousand hectares. Forest cover is typical for southern taiga – spruce forests prevail, with green moss. Bog moss and bog grass (near streams). Pine forests are located in the borders of bogs. Also seen are black alder, birch and aspen. Mammals such as brown bear (Ursus arctos), lynx (Lynx lynx) and wolf (canis lupis) exist here. Elk (Alces alces) is a common ungulate.
We watched with wonder, as the cubs ate with relish – almost like pups, but not quite. While a puppy would lap up milk with its grooved tongue, a cub just sucks milk off the bowl and chews up semisolid food effortlessly. The feed consisted of ingredients carefully formulated by the world-renowned bear biologist, Dr. Valentin S.Pazhetnov. We would have the honor of working with three generations of the Pazhetnovs for a month and learn their methods in brown bear rehabilitation.
After feeding the bear cubs, Valentin and his gracious wife Sveltana, fed comrade Loma and I at their log cabin home near the bear nursery enclosure- 7 smaller cubs were being housed there and Svetlana was bottle feeding two weak cubs with partial paresis of both hind limbs. This is not an uncommon condition in carnivore neonates and I keenly examined the cubs and advised the Pazhetnovs on treatment options. Valentin liked my treatment plan of warm water fomentation, oil massage and nerve tonics for the cubs – which I started off right away.
The Pazhetnov School :  Valentin’s concept of orphan bear rehabilitation is clear and simple. He is under no illusion about impacting the good of the species (or the group). His immediate concern is the good of the individual (or the gene). In 2005, he has 13 bear cubs to tutor and send back to the university of nature!
He says, “We base our fostering on me being their instructor but under no circumstances their mother,” Valentin goes on to explain,” It’s about keeping a clear distance between us and the bears. We want to avoid any kind of dependency or even familiarity with human traits. They’d start to think people were their parents and would seek them out for the rest of their lives. And then you could guarantee there’d be no happy endings.”
Valentin S. Pazhetnov (68), wife Sveltlana (62), son Sergey (42), grandson Valia (22) constitute 3 generations to have studied brown bears in the wild in Russia . Valentin has worked at different positions as bear biologist with the Governmental agencies and he was a director of the Central –Forest State Nature Biosphere Reserve before his retirement. It was his vision and mission to rehabilitate brown bear cubs – so often orphaned as a result of a legal winter bear hunt (trophy hunt) that starts in the December and ends on the last day of February every year. The hunters get a license from the Forest Department that costs around US $45. In theory, 10% of the population can be taken as a result of this hunt. For instance, as Tver region has a wild bear population of 1800, 180 licenses are issued per hunting season. But in practice, more than the prescribed number of bears get killed because there is also illegal hunting to contend with. Also, as hunters take the big sized bears the size of a bear in the wild has dropped significantly. It is the orphan cubs that deeply moved Valentin to start up his Biological station at Chisty les, 150 km from the Central Reserve in 1985.
Valentin spent a few years studying zoology and ecology in Moscow to acquire a deeper understanding of his forest environment. During his field studies Valentin accidentally scared a female bear from her den, leaving behind three abandoned cubs. He took them back to his tent, keeping them there with him two nights. When the mother did not return, he packed up and left – with the cubs in tow.
The Fine Print: Wildlife rehabilitators learn in their early days that the animals they work on should never be imprinted on people. But they also must remember that the imprinting of the mother’s image is the major element of behavioral stereotype formation – a safety feature wired by nature into every animal. This feature is of special importance for a young animal, which ensures the highest degree of safety, especially at an early period in its life. When a family migrates to a new place and the loss of cub is highly probable (especially in a big family), the imprint of the mother provides secure contact between the cub and the female bear and urges the former to follow her about.
No moving object, even a potentially dangerous one causes the reaction of avoidance in bear cubs (in other animals, too). Formation of main defensive reactions is over when the cubs are 5 months old. At this age, they are capable of evading danger themselves by hiding in the thickets or climbing a tree. At an age of about 1.5 years, the cubs’ link with the mother weakens considerably.
Bear Necessities:  Bears are not true hibernators like bats, small rodents and shrews, which go comatose during this period. This phenomenon has been given names such as ‘dormancy,’ ‘heavy sleep,’ ‘carnivorean lethargy,’ ‘seasonal ursine torpor.’ It is a state of dormancy and inactivity that is utilized by bears and various other animals to adapt to short winter food supplies.
If a 2-month-old bear cub weighing 6 kg tugs at your heartstrings for being the cuddliest of a young mammal, a one- day old bear cub will not cease to amaze you. It will weigh about 16 ounces (1/720 of sow’s weight), lightly furred, and is 9 inches long. It would require the best skills of a rehabilitator to be able to hand raise an orphan bear cub.
When the cubs arrive at OBRC, they are thoroughly examined and the newborn are handled especially with care. The age of the cub within first 10-30 days of its life can be relatively well determined by its weight and appearance. This is crucial for its correct maintenance, feeding and nursing care. Accessories for care of bear cubs are very much like those for the care of human babies. A ready stock of diapers, tablecloth, napkins, cotton tampons for massage and toilet procedures, lab coat, gloves/mittens made of soft cloth, buckets for the toilet procedures and room cleaning.
We were then taken to the forest to see the bear enclosure consisting of 2 wooden log huts built within 12 hectares of forest area fenced with a chain-link and a 2-strand power fence. The hut is 2mx3mx4m with 2 inner compartments, each 2mx3m. It is a simple but well built log hut with gable roof and no windows. The cubs move into this hut from near the nursery hut near Valentin’s house, by the age of 2 months. Initially on arrival to the forest enclosure, the cubs are locked up for the night but within a few days when they have coped with this change of place, they are let free to forage outside day and night. The cubs are inspected daily at this stage during feeding time but again are not handled. Their food is offered in bowls kept in a stand and they are fed ‘hands-off’. Once they have finished their feed the bowl and stand is taken out and it hardly took 10 minutes for us to feed 11 bear cubs under our charge during the one-month we trained at the OBRC.
The most important part of the cub’s feeding is feeding them in the early age. Usually the cubs coming from a den are well fed and can easily endure 1-2 days without food. The newborn cubs have a well-expressed suck reflex, which allows feeding of even a day-old cub from a baby bottle.
The bear cubs go through a crucial development during childhood and learn skills that determine their survival in the wild. The cubs reaching 3 months of age must be isolated from the smells and sounds of the people and their habitation. The orphan cubs of this age exhibit a clear orientation toward a human and the sounds associated with the human – they can start ‘begging’: expressed as a series of monotonous, uniform sound signals. They actively seek a contact and if cubs are in a group they get excited and can attack each other. This is the time to shift them to a special den house, which should be attended only by the people who are feeding the cubs. The best thing is to let only one person feed them constantly- the cubs will ‘remember’ this person’s smell and will exhibit avoidance reaction to the smell of other people.
Release: The release of the orphan cubs back to their natural habitat – the forest, is timed to occur in July/August of each year when food is available in abundance. The forests are teeming with wild fruit like rowanberry, cranberry, and the bears have lots of grass to eat too. The cubs are usually around 6 to 7 months of age by the time of release and are able to fend for themselves at this stage of their life. But their foster parents – the Pazhetnovs do not entirely wash their hands off the cubs and are very concerned for their welfare even after release. They practice both hard and soft release for the cubs depending on the circumstances they were rescued in the first place.
All cubs are ear-tagged before release so that whomsoever may come across the animal in the forest is aware that the bear has been released by the Beat station, Chisty Les, and the forest officials particularly, ensure their safety and on occasions have prevented the ‘Pazhetnov alumni’ from getting hunted. On rare occasions, and sadly when a released bear is indeed hunted – the hunt inspector informs the Pazhetnovs of the killing and the ear tag is returned to them. But, this has not happened in years and that gives hope to this beautiful animal – one whose fate seems to be in safe hands.
Pictures of bears at OBRC : Dr. Valentin S.Pazhetnov, OBRC |
