Officials with the TWRA said the situation has prompted them to question the future of their relationship with Appalachian Bear Rescue.
Published: Dec. 19, 2024 at 11:28 AM EST
TOWNSEND, Tenn. (WVLT) – Several leaders with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency spoke Wednesday morning, addressing their controversial decision to euthanize 13 bear cubs from Appalachian Bear Rescue.
Officials with the agency said the situation has prompted them to question the future of their relationship with the rescue.
What happened?
The back-and-forth between the state agency and the bear rescue began Wednesday when ABR posted to Facebook saying the TWRA had decided to put down the bears without communicating to the rescue first.
TWRA Executive Director Jason Maxedon said that isn’t true.
Previous Coverage: ‘Unsuitable for release’ | TWRA responds after deciding to euthanize 13 bear cubs
“Some of this information has been misconstrued,” Maxedon said. “We have been working with them and trying to keep them informed of what has been going on.”
TWRA Deputy Director Brandon Wear also spoke Thursday, outlining the timeline of the whole decision-making process.
According to Wear, ABR staff noticed one of their cubs had pneumonia-like symptoms near the end of November and sent it to UT for treatment.
Days later on Nov. 26, Wear said, TWRA learned about what happened and hosted a meeting with several expert groups to decide what should happen next.
On that list was the UT Institute for Agriculture, the UT College of Veterinary Medicine, the National Park Service and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife, he said.
According to Wear, ABR was told about the situation on Dec. 10. Maxedon said the rescue was given multiple chances to speak to veterinary staff about why the bears had to be put down.
“I personally spoke to the director of ABR about this decision,” Maxedon said. “The ABR director was invited more than once to speak to the veterinary staff.”
Maxedon went on to say that ABR staff did not agree with TWRA’s decision and did not want to discuss it with the agency.
So what does this situation mean for ABR? Maxedon and Dr. Dan Grove, a UT wildlife expert, both spoke on the rescue’s future with TWRA.
Grove said, at the very least, the rescue needs to fully sanitize two of its enclosures — the two that have hosted sick bear cubs.
“In terms of sanitation, because this is an outdoor enclosure, the recommendation is for a controlled burn,” Grove said.
That would burn off leaf litter and other natural material that could be playing host to disease-causing pathogens.
As for inside enclosures and any man-made structures, they’d need to be cleaned with chemicals before TWRA sent any bears to ABR.
However, Maxedon said the entire situation has put a strain on TWRA’s relationship with ABR, and cleaning the enclosures alone might not guarantee the agency works with the rescue again.
“We’re going to reevaluate our relationship with ABR,” he said, referring specifically to ABR’s comments about not being involved in the decision-making process.
Why are the bears being euthanized?
It’s a decision that’s faced plenty of pushback, even in just the day or so since the news was made public.
Grove outlined TWRA’s thinking process, trying to explain why the 13 bears need to be put down, even if treatment clears up their symptoms.
“Just because a treatment occurs and you resolve signs we can visibly see, doesn’t mean the bacteria might not still be there,” he said. According to Grove, a “cured” bear, when released back into the wild, could still infect other wild bears.
“We can’t run the risk that they may be a subclinical carrier for the disease,” Grove said. “It’s out of an abundance of caution that we’ve opted to go down this route.”
Even if treatment could guarantee that a bear, when released into the wild, would not infect others, there’s still a timing issue, according to Maxedon.
The director said, usually, bears only spend six to nine months in rehabilitation. After that, they’re released into the wild before they can develop bad habits around humans.
“We don’t want them to become so comfortable being around humans that they approach humans after being released to the wild,” he said.
What’s happened to the 13 bear cubs?
Maxedon said the TWRA had taken eight of the 13 cubs to UT already, and they had been put down. That means there’s five more still at ABR as of Thursday.
When asked, he reiterated that the TWRA does not make decisions like this lightly; he said anyone who works in the industry is passionate about wildlife.
