TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

One of three black bear cubs left alone after their presumed mother was shot to death Aug. 17 in Frazier Park has been put back in the wild for a second time, officials said Friday.

The male cub, about six months old, had wandered about 10 miles away from his wilderness home on the Tejon Ranch. It had seriously injured its throat.

The cub was trapped on Wednesday near Neenach, about 22 miles east of Gorman off Highway 138.

The throat injury was most likely from a barbed wire fence or glass as the bear hunted for food, officials said. It was treated Thursday at CALM (California Living Museum), reported Kevin O'Connor, supervising wildlife biologist for the Department of Fish and Game.

The cub had lost about seven pounds from when it was first put in the wild nearly two weeks ago. It was taken back to the wild after treatment Thursday, O'Connor said. .

Fish and Game policy is to put bear cubs in the wild if they are old enough. This one was, he said.

"They can survive," he said, although cubs are most vulnerable when they first leave their mother.

Among their predators are other male bears who are trying to give their own cubs a better chance to survive, O'Connor said.

Generally, cubs stay with their mothers for more than a year before they venture out on their own, he said.

What wildlife managers don't want is to keep bears around humans for very long. "We don't want them associating humans with food and shelter," he said.

It's better to have them in the wild eating berries, grubs and small rodents, he said.

If bears start depending upon humans, it leads to conflicts, which is what happened with the mother bear in Frazier Park.

The bear grabbed a dog near a home which triggered a frantic encounter that ended when the dog's owner shot the bear, according to The Mountain Enterprise newspaper.

Fish and Game Lt. Tom Stenson, whose team investigated the incident, found the shooting justifiable to protect the life of the dog owner's wife.

O'Connor said the incident was also unfortunate because ideally bears should be afraid of humans, not in close contact with them. "We want bears to run away if they see a human," he said.

After the mother was shot, neighbors reported seeing three cubs wandering around. The evidence suggests the killed bear was their mother, O'Connor said.

Those three cubs, a male and two females, were trapped about a week after the shooting and put on the Tejon Ranch near water and food, O'Connor said.

Unfortunately, the male cub ventured to the high desert scrub area around Neenach, which doesn't have much food or shade, O'Connor said.

That could explain how it lost weight, he said.