Counting and cuddling bear cubs across Pennsylvania
GREENTOWN, Pa. — Deep in the woods, down in a hole, Emily Carrollo is rooting through a jumble of warm, dark fur, looking for baby bears to cuddle.
A mother black bear, one of Pennsylvania’s largest mammals, fills up most of the den and, luckily, she’s fast asleep, thanks to hibernation and a woozy brew of tranquilizers delivered by dart.
There are approximately 15,000 black bears living in Pennsylvania, and this one found prime real estate to start a family. Some bears hibernate out in the open, under trees, or right on the ice of a frozen lake for some reason. This den is a deep dugout, camouflaged by a shroud of mountain laurel near Promised Land State Park in the Poconos.
Mom is fat and happy. It’s a tight squeeze.
“OK, that’s her butt,” Carrollo says, feeling her away around.
On this late-winter morning, Carrollo, the black bear program manager for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, led a team of biologists, game wardens, veterinarians, students, and onlookers into the forest to check up on this young family. The cubs would be weighed, have blood drawn, then be snuggled by guests for about an hour, before Carrollo put them back in.
Cub counting and cuddling trips are not open to the public.
Black bears have been spotted in all of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, including Philadelphia, where they quickly become celebrities before they are relocated back to the wild. The occasional wanderer aside, bears typically call about three-fourths of those counties home and they’re thickest in north-central Pennsylvania. During recent hunting seasons, the most bears were taken in Lycoming County, Potter County, and Pike County, home to Promised Land State Park.
Based out of Harrisburg, Carrollo puts a lot of miles on her Game Commission truck. She can visit dozens of dens each...