Battling the elements to collar orphaned bears in India Usually
radio-collaring Asiatic black bears involves travelling to the
forest site in a vehicle and a few hours journey on foot in the
forest, tranquilising and radio collaring them. It’s usually
simple. But this time it wasn’t so easy. The International Fund
for Animal Welfare and our local partner Wildlife Trust of India
team set out on our mission to collar two orphaned Asiatic black
bear cubs that were undergoing what we call in-situ
acclimatization in the forest of Mehao Wildlife Sanctuary in the
Northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. At first we
witnessed the after effects of a hail storm in a small town
named Dholla. Our journey was slow and difficult because debris
from the storm was scattered all along the road. Hundreds of
trees were uprooted, houses were destroyed and electric poles
fell on the highway, an early start to the monsoon season. The
incoming storm led us to postpone our plans and halt for a night
in Dholla. While many of us w