When Ethel the 300-pound bear started limping, her keepers knew where to call

STACY, Minn. — The sedatives worked quickly on the 300-pound black bear named Ethel. She circled in the morning sun and then dizzily sat down, huffing at her handlers as she laid her head near the corner of her pen and fell asleep.

The first thing Peggy Callahan noticed was the paw on the bear’s back right leg. The claws were twice as long the other three. The thick foot pad, which should have already naturally shed, looked fresh.

“She just hasn’t been putting any weight on it at all,” Callahan said.

It had been seven months since Ethel started limping. On Monday, the crew at the Wildlife Science Center finally had a chance to learn why, and what it might mean for her future. Thanks to a dog and cat veterinarian willing to bring a sleeping bear into her office, and a team of helpers to carry it, they have their answer.

Ethel was found as a cub in 2009, half-starved and alone in the woods of the White Earth Reservation. It was late in the summer, when young bears typically still live under the protection of their mothers. Ethel weighed 12 pounds, less than half the normal size. Emaciated and dehydrated, she couldn’t walk in a straight line. Since black bears almost never abandon their young, Callahan believes the mother had been killed sometime that spring or summer.

The way the young bear struggled to walk, it could have indicated neurological damage. It looked like she might need to be euthanized. Callahan wanted to give her a chance at the Wildlife Science Center, which she founded primarily to house wild-born wolves to assist with research and education.

They made room for the black bear, and while it took 12 months, Ethel got her weight up and started walking straight. At two years old, she was as healthy as any other black bear in captivity.

Over the years, two more black bears were added to the center. Ethel got used to her new home. When she was young and her handlers needed to vaccinate her or give her shots, they were able to bribe her with marshmallows and peanut butter. She quickly became too smart for that, becoming suspicious of people with treats.

Ethel, now 16, shares her pen of more than an acre with a larger male named Ricky. She showed no sign of distress until last fall, when her limp showed up almost overnight. She stopped putting weight on her back right leg in November.

Veterinarians sedated her then on site, looked for any signs of damage and found none. After feeling the leg, they couldn’t rule out a fracture, but couldn’t say for sure without an X-ray.

Unlike most wild mammals in Minnesota, black bears will exactly once per year readily accept a doctor’s order for bed rest. Callahan and her veterinarian decided to wait the few weeks until winter, and see how Ethel felt after a long hibernation off her feet.

Spring came, but Ethel wasn’t any better.

Monday morning, 10 staff members surrounded Ethel as she slept. One held a thermometer and kept a constant watch on her internal temperature while another held onto a hose with cold water in case the knocked-out bear started to overheat. On a count of three, they rolled her on a tarp. Another count of three and they lifted her into the bed of a pickup truck.

Bear bones are so dense it’s hard to imagine what kind of force it would take to break one. Especially a mature bear in the prime of life, and behind a fence. The only thing strong enough to do that, Callahan suspected, was another bear.

Ricky the male stood alone on the opposite side of the pen while Ethel was loaded into the truck, as far from the commotion as he could get.

Callahan remained in the truck bed with Ethel to make sure her temperature remained stable and that she showed no signs of the drugs wearing off or waking. Callahan’s daughter, Megan Callahan-Beckel, the center’s animal care coordinator, sat behind the wheel and started the 20-minute drive down I-35W to the only vet in the area willing to see and X-ray a 300-pound black bear.

Liz Gigler, executive director of the nonprofit clinic Rescued Pets are Wonderful (RPAW), opened a center for major pet surgeries and aging dogs and cats in October. Her idea was to take some of the most complicated and time-consuming cases off the hands of other clinics, which have seen high levels of employee burnout, turnover and wait times since the pandemic.

Gigler has long been drawn to the toughest cases, to giving some of the most hurt or wounded animals a chance they might not otherwise get. In 2020, she and her group saved a pitbull pup named Riptide who had been found lashed to a tree in the woods with his mouth zip-tied. She’s found new homes for dogs that have been through some of the worst abuse. The center is treating several cats that had been found frozen to the ground and needed amputations.

“I don’t look at their past,” Gigler said. “That doesn’t do them any good. Do I go home sometimes and break down? Sure. But I’m here to get them where they need to be. When I come in to do a job, or I pull them from Animal Rescue or I remove their leg, I think about how we’re here to get them to where they should be.”

Callahan and her team of helpers squeezed Ethel through the doors of RPAW, past rows of crates with wounded but healing cats and into a small X-ray room. They laid the bear on the machine and positioned her legs for the vets.

“Beautiful,” said veterinarian Jamie Dean, as she and Gigler took the first image.

There was no fracture in the bone. Arthritis had likely formed in the bear’s joints, Dean said, describing the X-ray.

Callahan explained her theory, that Ricky may have hit Ethel from behind with all his weight. The arthritis could be the consequence of a knee injury from that sort of encounter.

The drive back to the Wildlife Science Center was more relaxed. Callahan was relieved there was no fracture. As they laid Ethel back in her pen, they folded a small blanket under her head for a pillow. Callahan was thinking through plans for Ethel’s future. Arthritis could be managed with pain medicine, slipped to Ethel every morning with peanut butter.

They waited as the bear took a deep breath and started moving her tongue, then her head. Groggy, she put her head back down on the blanket. Callahan left her there to sleep it off, confident that when she woke up they would have a plan for the pain.