Should orphaned bear cubs be rehabilitated?

It's a touchy subject: whether it makes sense to raise orphaned black bears in a shelter and release them into the wild, or let nature take its course.

Black bears are not a threatened species. There are between 120,000 and 160,000 in B.C. alone, according to government estimates.

In fact the biggest threat they face is from humans according to recent reports hunters kill an average of nearly 4,000 black bears each year.

And since September, the B.C. Conservation Officer Servicehas killed more than 300 so-called problem bears.

In Alberta, the government has banned the practice of sending orphaned cubs to shelters.

"To take a bear raised in captivity and release it in the wildis a kiss of death for the bear," MarkBoyce,Alberta Conservation Association chair in fisheries and wildlife at the University of Alberta told CBC last month.

Boyce says that's because rehabilitated bears have a hard time finding food, because they didn't learn to forage from their mother.

Researchers and biologists generally agree that rehabilitated bears also tend to have a lack of fear from humans whichcan be a hazard if they wander back into populated areas, Alberta Environment spokesmanTravis Ripley told CBC in October.

So why save them?

But on the other side, there are passionateconservationists and increasingly scientific evidence saying it is worth it to save orphaned cubs.

• Orphaned cub sponsored by hotel staff
• Cubs turning up in unusually high numbers this year

For more than 25 years, Angelika Langen has worked to convince people that a big part of her life's work rehabilitatingorphaned bear cubs is worthwhile.

Langen and her husband Peter take inorphaned bear cubs at their facility inSmithers,B.C.,under the name of their charity, the Northern Lights Wildlife Society. The Langensbring the bears more than 300 since 1991 back to healthand release them as yearlings.

She says for decades she has listened to critics tell her to just let nature happen.

But human interference is why so many cubs are orphaned in the first place, Langen says, and she wants to show those critics not only that her work is noble, but that it is valuable.

"I am quite confident that we can prove we are correct ...I would love to be able to prove to them beyond a reasonable doubt this is working."

But thatevidenceisn't there. At least not yet.

The B.C. Conservation Officer Service sends cubs to Langen's shelter, and others like it. But even they aren'tconvinced of the effectiveness of rehabilitation.

"For the most part, although the bears areear-tagged,we don't have a lot of data," said Chris Doyle, who speaks for the conservation service.

Langen has plenty of anecdotalevidence that suggests that the majority ofbears she raised haven't been in conflict with humans after their release, and in recent years she has begun to gather scientific evidence as well.

First of its kind study

A peer reviewed study, authored by John Beecham,a former biologist from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, found bears reared in captivity had comparable survival, human conflict and reproduction rates to those reared in the wild.

Beecham hasworked with Langenin recent years to care for and release grizzly bears. Eighteen grizzlies were fitted with radio collars designedto fall off after two years.

"And as far as finding natural foods and settling into the areas and not getting into trouble with humans, they are doing fairly well," Langen said.

Three of the bears wandered too close to humans, and were shot, while the other 15 were tracked closely, and shown to havethrived, Langen said.

Langen hopes to fix radio collars on black bears in future, and plans to do so in the next couple of years. She hopes to secure funding to track and study black bears released into the wild to determine whether, as she believeswhole-heartedly, the cubs she rears thrive.

"It's not nice to think the work that we are doing and the effort that we are [expending] is for nothing, right? I would like to know too."