Deacon - A Miracle Cub (Part 1)

The Fourth of July usually marks a time when freedoms are celebrated, for me 1999 marks a time for when a freedom was stolen.

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The day was routine enough with the average American celebrating the birth of our nation with the usual lineup of indulgences… fireworks, fun and food. After all, can anything really be more American than that? What made this holiday weekend a little bit different for me was a call I received shortly before it's conclusion. A TWRA officer was trying to catch a cub that was ultimately destined for the bear center.

The following day I received notice that the officer was successful in his attempt and that I was to meet him that evening in a K-Mart parking lot in upper East Tennessee. After making preparations at the center I grabbed the standard capture equipment that was necessary to have on hand when handling a bear and loaded it in my jeep. I then proceeded to head north since it was about a two-hour drive to the rendezvous point. Given the fact it was late-evening on a Monday night in a town that boasts no more than a few thousand residents, it was a pretty desolate scene. All that awaited me when I arrived was a dark green agency pick-up in a now empty parking lot. This was a good thing since  transferring a black bear from one vehicle to another in the middle of a department store parking lot tends to attract a lot of attention. Its odd...you'd think people would have better things to see.

Here's the thing, when dealing with wild bear cubs events can and often do go wrong. Actually "wrong" may be slightly too harsh of a word, let's just say things often go unexpected. Such was the case that night in a now darkening parking lot.

The meet-up was routine enough. Myself and the officer exchanged pleasantries as he emerged from the cab of his truck and walked toward the back end of his pick-up. Within the bed contained the prize, a small 25-pound cub. He sat quietly, confined to a cage, anxiously awaiting the next move from his handlers. 

Deacon was a larger than expected cub for his presumed age.

His size actually surprised me. At that time of the year, early July, I expected an orphaned cub to come in somewhere in the 10 to 15 pound range, so size-wise he was extremely healthy looking. This also concerned me as well since we had to transfer him from the cage in the bed of pick-up truck to the pet carrier I had nestled in the back of my Jeep. Recently, I had observed a 15-pound cub turn into a whirling fury when Dr. Ramsey tried picking it up to administer a shot. The bear before us was almost twice as large and therefore probably twice the handful. The cage exchange wasn't shaping up to be an easy chore considering the meager capture equipment I had. The capture pole and heavy duty gloves looked paltry for the situation. Seemed like I also had to bring a "whole-lotta" determination into the equation.

I began preparing myself for what was about you be an intense, but hopefully short-lived wresting match with a black bear cub on the end of a catch-pole. If done right and done quickly the cage transfer would go relatively smoothly.

I prepped the pet carrier, donned the heavy-duty work gloves and grabbed the the catch-pole. The determination part was a bit hesitant to join me, not because I was afraid of tackling the task but rather because I was afraid of screwing it up. I guess you could say "Houdini thoughts" were fresh in my mind.

As I turned and prepared for battle the officer just smiled and approached the door of the cage. I can still hear his exact words, "Awe heck, you ain't gonna need that...just watch how it's done."

He leaned forward and opened the door. 

Like WIDE open.

My first instinct was to lunge forward toward the door in a effort to block or catch what was soon-to-be coming out. Dam...those Houdini thoughts were strong! My biggest wonder today is if I'll ever find out what will happen if I one day succeed in catching an escaping bear with my bare hands. At that point, if I ever do, I guess I will begin calling them my "bear" hands. 

Anyway, my feigned motioning was all for naught. Almost immediately, the cub sprang to his feet, made two dashing leaps towards the officer and jumped into his awaiting arms. The officer then casually walked over, cradled bear in tow, and placed the cub in the pet carrier, securing the door when he was through. Though he said not a single word I was certain I could hear him smiling.

That's when he finally turned to me and said, "This ain't no regular bear cub son."

I imagine my stunned, dangling-jaw look, snapped the realization into the officer that an explanation might be warranted. So in an attempt to get me to close my slack jaw he went on to explain. "We picked this cub up near Deacon Rd. He's been hanging around a cabin up there...we reckon they've been feedin' him and realized they couldn't keep him no more. You can see he's a pretty tame little bear."

Though my face no longer showed it, I was still stunned. What was I to do with a tame bear? The bear center's mission was to rehabilitate and release "wild" orphaned bear cubs. I was being handed a bear that in all likelihood couldn't be released?

A minute or so later the officer was shaking my hand and thanking me for taking the cub. I watched as he drove off, within moments his dark-green agency truck disappeared into the night.

It was just me and "Deacon" as he would soon be named, alone in a darkened parking lot.

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Before long I was heading home, which of course meant I was also heading back to the bear center. My mind was racing the entire time. I had to figure out what we were going to do with this bear. The one thing that kept breaking my concentration on the bear's predicament just so happened to be the bear himself. Strangely enough he was making some noise in the now blackened recess of the pet carrier. No, he wasn't crying or vocalizing in any intentional way, rather he was sleeping. And he was making noise as he slept, a distinct and discomforting wheeze, almost as if he was straining to breathe.

Arriving close to midnight back at the center, I placed the carrier down in the maintenance building, made sure he had enough food and water, and called it a night. I was hoping a good night's sleep would yield some clarity as to how we were to handle our new bear.

Sleep didn't help. Morning came and I still had no idea what I was going to do with this bear. Oh well, the least I could do until we figured it out was make sure he was well taken care of and had plenty of food and water.

As I peered in on Deacon the following morning I couldn't help but feel sorry for the little guy. Heaven knows how he came into the hands of the people that were caring for him, but here he was barely six months old and already orphaned twice. And wheezing to boot.

And then he coughed.

I have never in my life heard a bear cough. It was plain to hear and even though I was not a skilled bear doctor it was also easy to realize something just wasn't right!

Though he was extremely healthy looking he sounded awful, so before I even attempted to feed him that morning the first thing I did was make arrangements with Dr. Ramsey at the U.T. Veterinary School. My hope was that they would give Deacon a complete exam to find out what was wrong with him. Once again, he was going for a ride in the back of my jeep.

A full diagnostic examination was performed.

I arrived at the Vet school shortly after lunch and they immediately took him in. They wanted to run full diagnostics on him so he was going to be there a few hours. This gave me time to make a few calls to consult with others who could help me decide what we were going to do with him. The Board members I contacted agreed there was little we could do with a cub that was so far habituated. It would simply be too risky to release a larger bear that already considered humans as a reliable source for food. If Deacon was willing to jump in the arms of an officer he just met the day before who knows what would happen if he encountered another person at close range. Needless to say, it's almost certain it wouldn't be good.

My next call was to Walter Cook, the TWRA Captive Animal Coordinator. He agreed the bear never should have come to the center in the first place. Thankfully though, he realized the predicament and offered a solution more palatable than the obvious...he suggested we try to find the bear a permanent home. Maybe, just maybe, if fortune was on our side we could find the bear a home and spare him his life. The call with Walter went smoother than expected, however, the call from the Vet clinic did not. Dr. Ramsey advised me to come on in and he'd tell me what they had found.

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The news was grim.

The veterinarians performed all sorts of diagnostics and everything was pointing to the same grim conclusion. Deacon suffered from a severe case of aspiration pneumonia. When I told Dr. Ramsey the background information of how and where the cub was found he said it all made sense. You see, aspiration pneumonia is a situation where the lungs are filled with fluid and the animal not only has a hard time breathing, but has a hard time fighting the infection due to its debilitating effects. A primary cause of this in young animals is improper bottle feeding. In other words, the bear was forced a bottle and more than likely held improperly thus resulting in milk getting into his lungs. This almost assured that the wildlife officer's hunch was correct, someone had been raising him by hand all along.

Thankfully Dr. Ramsey caught it in time and was prescribing meds to combat the infection. We loaded the sedated cub into my Jeep for a third time. What he said as I was preparing to hop in the drivers seat completely caught me off guard...

"Hey Daryl, try not to let it bother you but don't be surprised if he doesn't make it through the night."

With that he closed my door.

(To be continued...)