Guwahati: Three orphaned Asiatic black bear cubs were on Thursday moved to the wild by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) in Manas National Park,
The orphaned cubs, with their mothers presumably killed, were found last December in three different villages in the fringes of the park, captured and handed over to the Forest Department and IFAW-WTI for care and rehabilitation.
The cubs are hand-reared and following a gradual acclimatization process involving daily walks into the forest accompanied by animal keepers, released back into the wild, IFAW-WTI North East Regional Head Bhaskar Choudhury said.
The cubs are monitored post-release for a period of around six months with the help of radio-collars, he said.
The Asiatic black bear is classified as ‘vulnerable’ in the IUCN Red List of threatened species, and is protected under Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
IFAW-WTI has so far rehabilitated 31 Asiatic black bear cubs in the northeast Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. (PTI)
