Famed grizzly cubs find a new home

Posted 1/25/18

Michelle Giltner captured a shot of the two cubs last spring, as they leaned on a guardrail along the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway. When the Powell school teacher uploaded her shot to Facebook, it quickly became an online sensation.

In Giltner’s …

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Famed grizzly cubs find a new home

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Nebraska zoo plans to make the orphaned brothers the ‘heart’ of its facility
Two grizzly bear cubs — made famous by a local photographer — are now drawing more attention as the stars of a Nebraska zoo.

Michelle Giltner captured a shot of the two cubs last spring, as they leaned on a guardrail along the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway. When the Powell school teacher uploaded her shot to Facebook, it quickly became an online sensation.

In Giltner’s photograph, the bears look inquisitive — almost as if they were out for a day of people-watching. But the truth is the cubs were lost. On May 21, the day before Giltner snapped the young grizzlies’ picture, their mother had been shot and killed by a Cody man.

A crime

William Kenneth Stoner — also known as Kenneth Stone — thought he had harvested a black bear, federal prosecutors say. But when the 57-year-old went to register the bruin with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in Cody, staff informed Stoner he had actually killed a grizzly bear, which was protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Investigators with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives would ultimately determine that, not only had Stoner wrongly killed the grizzly, prior felony convictions meant he was prohibited from possessing the Savage .270 caliber rifle he’d used to shoot the bear.

Stoner previously ran afoul of federal authorities in 1993. That’s when the then-river guide and seven other men took it upon themselves to reshape a narrow, treacherous section of Arizona’s Salt River by detonating a large amount of explosives. Stoner — who said he was trying to make the route safer for rafters — later fled the country with fraudulently obtained money and phony documents, prosecutors said at the time. Authorities eventually nabbed him in Australia and filed additional charges.

In 1997, Stoner was sentenced to 42 months in prison, plus probation, and ordered to pay more than $260,000 in fines and restitution for seven offenses, federal court records say.

People with past felony convictions generally remain able to legally hunt with weapons like a bow or antique, muzzle-loading guns, but state and federal laws prohibit them from possessing modern firearms — such as the rifle used by Stoner.

As part of a deal with Wyoming’s U.S. Attorney’s Office, Stoner pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of unlawfully taking a threatened species (the female grizzly) and a felony count of possessing a firearm while a felon.

On Jan. 4, U.S. District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl sentenced Stoner to five years of supervised probation and ordered him to pay $5,110 in court fines and fees and $25,000 in restitution for the dead bear.

A ‘once in a lifetime’ photo

Giltner and a bus-full of Southside Elementary School students — on a school field trip to Yellowstone National Park and the Beartooth Range — knew none of the cubs’ backstory when they spotted the young grizzlies posing along the highway on May 22.

“I got down on my knees and begged the school bus driver to stop the bus so I could get the picture. He allowed me one step out of the door and I was able to get 11 frames,” Giltner recalled.

The last frame was the best. She uploaded the shot to a popular Facebook group for Wyoming photos and it quickly received thousands of hits and comments. Viewers engaged in a contest to name the cubs and many hundreds of comments rolled in, testing the batteries in Giltner’s phone.

“It was getting out of hand. I guess I didn’t realize how this would blow up,” she said.

The photo captured the imagination of all who looked, including professional photographers who had spent years looking for photos of grizzlies full of personality.

But the cubs, meanwhile, were alone in the wild — their lives in jeopardy.

The young grizzlies became habituated to humans feeding them along the side of the road, leaving U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials with a tough situation: Find the bears a home quickly or the cubs would need to be destroyed.


The Riverside Discovery Center in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, answered the plea for a permanent home.

“They would have been euthanized if we weren’t able to give them a place to live,” said Anthony Mason, the center’s zoo director. “It’s a bittersweet story. It’s unfortunate they were orphaned, but we’re glad we had space for them.”

A new home

The zoo quickly moved some zebras and began renovations on a temporary enclosure for the two males. The pair lived in large crates until the zoo could take delivery. The brothers, who made an official debut in December, became popular with visitors and zoo staff. They are inquisitive, playful and happy, Mason said. They’ve picked up the nicknames, Big Bear and Little Bear.

“Big Bear is definitely a climber and very vocal. He makes lots of different noises and lets everyone know he’s there,” Mason said. “Little Bear is more of a digger and the more shy of the two, even though they’re both very curious.”

Riverside Discovery Center staff have been tasked with keeping the bears busy: They bury branches and earthworms for digging adventures. They put a lot of thought into daily interactions so Big Bear and Little Bear are leading enriched lives, Mason said.

One thing in particular catches their attention: “When staff move through the area in a golf cart, they both stop what they’re doing, stand up and watch with great interest,” he said.

It’s hard to be sure why they love the golf cart, but it probably signals a meal — similar to those who fed the cubs along the side of the road. Habituating bears to humans, which usually starts innocently with a snack passed through the window of a car, is often a death sentence for bears. Fed bears become aggressive and soon need to be moved or, because the impulse is hard to break, put down.

These cubs were saved. But zoos are running out of space for more bears.

Riverside Discovery Center hopes to raise $500,000 by next fall to build a new permanent exhibit in the center of the zoo to feature the grizzly cubs rescued from Park County.

“The bears will become the heart of the zoo,” Mason said.

The center has more than 10 percent of needed funds pledged already and is hoping to find new donors or corporate sponsors.

“We’re looking for a big push to tip the scales,” Mason said.

Riverside Discovery Center staffers plan to name the cubs soon and are considering ways to get the public involved — possibly a contest.

Giltner wants to be a part of the fundraising effort. She’s considering ways to include her “once in a lifetime” photograph to sweeten the pot for the zoo. And she is already planning to visit the yearlings.

“I’d love to go see them. Those are my other kids, they’ve been such a big part of my life recently,” she said. “I hope Scottsbluff adores them as much as the people of Park County.”

The fifth-grade teacher knows her students will start pleading to take their next field trip to see the bears — this time to western Nebraska.

“There’s slim to no chance of that long of a field trip,” Giltner said with a chuckle. “The beauty of the moment is we all shared the experience. One day, when my class is grown, they will come back to Southside and … they’ll say, ‘Remember when we saw the bears on our day in Yellowstone?’ Knowing that the cubs are being cared for makes the memory that much sweeter.”

For more information about the orphaned grizzlies’ new home, or to donate to their new habitat, visit http://riversidediscoverycenter.org/bears/.

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