From Good Question SILT, Colo. – It’s a modest house with a
couple of outbuildings and a yard full of this and that, like
many in the rural mountains. Only this one has cages. Great big
cages. And the closer you look, the more you realize those
aren’t domesticated animals. The Pauline Schneegas Wildlife
Foundation is a place where a lot of wild animals end up.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife sends bears. Sometimes they are tiny
cubs that nurse from a bottle, sometimes they are 100 pound-plus
young bears eating 10 to 15 pounds of food a day. The bears are
here to rehab. They’re orphaned bears, and many times they are
orphaned because their mothers have led them into trouble —
breaking into homes, killing livestock or posing a danger to
humans that is ultimately often human-caused. In addition, the
Schneegas Foundation is one of the places where the state takes
cubs orphaned after mother bears suffer accidental deaths.
“Those animals are going to die in the wild,” said John
Broderick, terrestrial programs manager f