SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Goldilocks only had to deal with three bears. Well, Nanci Limbach in Colorado is currently caring for over 30. Many cubs in Colorado are underweight and scrounging for food after a late-spring freeze and summer drought. Nanci Limbach lives with some of these bear cubs. She's executive director of the Pauline S. Schneegas Wildlife Foundation and joins us now. Thanks so much for being with us.
NANCI LIMBACH: Thank you for having us.
SIMON: What's a day like for you and the bears?
LIMBACH: Well, they're pretty busy. The bears are pretty much still asleep first thing in the morning, which must be nice for them. But mostly it's just trying to get food for them. The bears are currently going through about 2,000 pounds of fruit every week, so just trying to find all that food and get it here was hard because, with the freeze, the apples in all of Western Slope of Colorado froze as well. And that would be what they'd be eating right now. So they're having to ship them in from out of state.
SIMON: Well, how do they end up there?
LIMBACH: A lot of them are - their moms are starting to abandon, and that's kind of typical for this time of year. But the mom has survival of the fittest. And anything, probably, at this point that's less than 40 pounds is not going to make it through the winter. So our goal is to get them up to be about 60, and then we'll put them into hibernation here. Some of the others - you know, mothers have been illegally shot by people, so we've ended up with those cubs. And then quite a few are - moms are getting hit by cars because they're down here along the river. And where we live, I-70 is right along the Colorado River, so they end up crossing there to get to the water.
SIMON: Do mama bears ever come in without their cubs or looking for their cubs?
LIMBACH: Yeah. I had one mother one time that they trapped. She had three cubs. And they were trying to get hold of them, too, to relocate all of them. She sat and cried all day long 'cause she missed her kids. And eventually, they caught the three cubs. And it was kind of weird because we turned the cubs loose in there with her, and she jumps out of the tree and smacks every one of them and rolls and slams them into the fence. Then she eventually climbs back up on the tree and cuddles them and lets them nurse. And it kind of reminded me of that I-lost-my-kid-in-the-mall effect. Where have you been? Oh, yeah, I love you, but where have you been?
SIMON: (Laughter) How do you prepare a bear for hibernation?
LIMBACH: A lot of it's just plain fattening them. We try to do things to train them because they also have to learn how to survive as adults. So they've got logs that they can roll and things to play with and tire swings and a lot of climbing.
SIMON: So what happens next this winter?
LIMBACH: Well, it'll be a long winter. We've got probably three or four bears that we're not going to hibernate this year. They're just not going to get a weight. They came to us at about 10 to 15 pounds. And then the others - we keep them in our upper dens. And then somewhere in January and February, when there's a lot of snow wherever they're going in the end, they'll go on a snowmobile sled. And they'll go for a ride to wherever in the mountains that Colorado Parks and Wildlife determines that they're going to go. And they'll have built artificial dens up there. It's usually, like, a little snow cave, and the bears will be put into those. And then in March and April, they come out like regular bears.
SIMON: I got to tell you - that sounds utterly adorable.
LIMBACH: (Laughter).
SIMON: I mean, beginning with giving them a ride in a sled and then (laughter) putting them into motel...
LIMBACH: Yeah.
SIMON: ...Rooms. TV? I mean, did they get TV or internet connection in their dens?
LIMBACH: No, unfortunately. But we do den them with another one, so they always have company.
SIMON: Aww. Do you have any success stories we could enjoy?
LIMBACH: I've been doing this for 40-some years. All the bears in the first, like, five years that I did this had radio collars, and so they were tracked. We never lost one in hibernation. Let's put it that way. So that's a pretty good success when you realize you've done several hundred.
SIMON: Nanci Limbach is executive director of the Pauline S. Schneegas Wildlife Foundation in Silt, Colorado. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us, and best to your bears.
LIMBACH: Well, thank you. I appreciate it.
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