By Carol Stiffler
There are three new bear cubs at Oswald’s Bear Ranch, and the Oswalds want your help in naming the cinnamon-colored one.
The babies came to the ranch from Wisconsin on March 24, both lucky and unlucky. They’re separated from their mothers, probably due to death, but they’ve made it to Oswald’s. They’ll be fed and cared for now for the rest of their lives, as safe as any bear could hope to be.
And they’re adorable.
“They’re little devils,” said Dean Oswald, who owns and runs the bear ranch with his family.
The cubs are currently living in a wire enclosure in his living room, he said, and they get regular bottle feedings of a mixture of calf milk replacement, yogurt, water, and baby rice cereal.
The cubs don’t have the privilege of roaming the house because Oswald knows better.
“We had some get out four or five years ago, and it was like a tornado went through the whole house,” he said.
The Oswalds are collecting names for the cinnamon-colored cub via the Oswald’s Bear Ranch Facebook page, and suggestions are pouring in. Current name ideas include Hope, Ember, and Cinnabear.
Elsewhere on the ranch, bears are emerging from hibernation. In the wild, female bears sometimes come out of hibernation with new cubs that were born in January. No cubs are ever born on the ranch, Oswald said, since there is no breeding there. New babies are always the result of a rescue.
“If a person has bears or is going to send them to a zoo, I will purchase them,” Oswald said. “I hate to see a bear go to a zoo, where they have a 20-by-20 confinement.”
The Oswalds hope to open the ranch on May 22,
