N.M. Game and Fish captures cubs of bear who mauled runner

The black bear cubs orphaned last weekend after their mother was shot and killed for attacking a runner are now in captivity in an Española shelter. “My ultimate goal is for these kiddos to go back into the wild and we never hear about them again,” said Dr. Kathleen Ramsay, owner of Cottonwood Veterinarian Clinic and founder of the New Mexico Wildlife Center. The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish announced Sunday evening that officers captured the bears Saturday afternoon using a PNM cherry picker after they had climbed nearly 90 feet above the forest floor. The department had reported that the mother bear it killed on June 19 had three cubs, but wildlife officers captured only two. Ramsay said the department was mistaken because when officers — like they do with all radio-collared bears — tranquilized the mother in her den over the winter to change her collar, they counted three cubs. Ramsay said it was possible the third cub starved to death long before its mother attacked Karen Williams on June 18 in the Valles Caldera National Preserve as she was running a marathon. One bear, a female, is 12 pounds and feisty. Her brother weighs 8 pounds. Both were dehydrated when they arrived at Ramsay’s shelter, but they are doing well now, she said...more