Orphaned bear cub rescued behind Rite-Aid in Pottsville

Pennsylvania Game Commission wardens received a call last month about a lone bear cub behind a Rite-Aid drugstore in Pottsville, Schuylkill County.

Sure enough, Game Warden James Macunas and state police found the small cub without a mom in sight on April 28, according to a game commission account on Facebook Tuesday.

But, first, Macunas wanted to make sure that the mother might not return at night to retrieve her cub, so they placed the cub in a crate overnight behind the store.

The next day, the cub was still there, so Macunas decided the cub’s best chance for survival in the wild was to re-introduce it with an existing wild bear family. He took the cub to the northcentral part of the state and placed it in the care of a female bear and her three cubs.

The commission knew this bear family and had been monitoring it with a tracking collar. The agency will continue to monitor the family and will know better the success of the new cub come winter.