A man who picked up a dying bear cub last week while on a hike along the Santiam River Trail in Oregon is defending his actions.
Corey Hancock wasn't cited for rescuing the cub, which was sent to a wildlife rehabilitation facility in Lynnwood, Washington, but the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife warned him that it is against the law and bad for the animal to remove it from their natural home.
In a Facebook post, Hancock detailed the events leading up to him picking up and giving the bear cub mouth-to-mouth several times.
"I was hiking on the Santiam River Trail, after work, above the North Fork, aiming to check-out a waterfall I’d visited a couple times in the past," Hancock wrote adding, it began to rain cutting his initial hike short.
When Hancock was returning to his truck he stumbled upon a bear cub.
"He wasn't two feet off the trail, laying there on his back. Seeming by all appearances to be dead. His lips were blue. His eyes were open, but unmoving and hazy. The rain was pouring down, drenching his belly. I might have seen a shallow breath," Hancock wrote.
From Corey Hancock's Facebook page.
Hancock, who is an avid outdoorsman, immediately began to think of what could go wrong.
Hancock said he quickly snapped a pic of the cub before retreating to a short distance away.
Hancock made the decision to pick up the cub. He wrapped him "like a baby" in his flannel shirt, placed him into his rain-proof stuff-sack and carried the cub under his arm as he ran toward the trailhead and his car.
Hancock wrote the bear needed professional help. Detailing how he performed mouth-to-mouth twice on the journey into town and to a veterinarian that would treat wild animals.
Hancock took the cub to Turtle Ridge Wildlife Center where a veterinarian there gave the cub electrolyte fluids and worked to warm the bear up.
Hancock said it wasn't until the morning when he realized his rescue of the cub he named Elkhorn had become very public, and positive and negative messages flooded his social accounts catching the eye of officials at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
From the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
From the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said a female bear cub was brought to their office in Corvallis on Thursday, after its den near Myrtle Creek was disturbed by a brush-clearing operation. The mother bear was believed to have abandoned the bear cub due to the continuing disturbance, and it was determined that the mother bear was unlikely to return.
Both bear cubs are of similar age, between three and four months old, the male cub weighed 4.5 pounds, and the female weighed 6 pounds.
On Friday, both bear cubs were transported to PAWS Wildlife Center in Lynnwood, Washington, a rehabilitation facility used by the Department because of their specialized standard of care designed to allow young bears to develop without habituating to humans so they can be returned to Oregon for release into the wild.
“We’ll receive these cubs as unhabituated and year-old bears sometime between March and June of 2018,” Colin Gillin said. “And they’ll be between 100 and 150 pounds at the time of release.”