Devon welcomes migrant orphans

WATCH: Bear cubs make county their home

Two orphans have arrived in Devon, hoping to make the county their 'forever home.'

The youngsters are bear cubs, and they are now settling into their new surroundings at Wildwood Escot in East Devon.

Called Mish and Lucy, they were saved from death after being abandoned by their mother in the Albanian wilderness. Two years after migrating to Kent, they're now seemingly happy in the westcountry. It's the first time Eurasian brown bear cubs have been kept at a wildlife park in Devon.

The siblings are unable to return to the wild, but their new home provides them with trees to climb, earth dens to dig, root balls, fallen trees, toys and rope challenges, and they're been given daily food treasure hunts.

Wildwood Escot General Manager George Hyde said: “We couldn’t be happier to have Mish and Lucy here after all this time. They’ll be the first bears we’ve ever had at the park and we’ve created a fantastic woodland home for them to explore and grow in.”
 
“Lucy and Mish had a really tough start in life but really thrived under the care of our expert keepers in Kent. We can’t wait to continue the great rehabilitative work that the team has already started."
 
Later this summer, the cubs will move to a custom-built acre-and-a-half, permanent enclosure in the park, the equivalent of about 1.5 football fields. Everything will be left as natural as possible and will create a lifelong habitat for the bears.
 
Visitors to the park will be able to get up close to them by using a new ‘bear bridge’ providing a birds' eye view over the cubs’ woodland home.
 
Paul Whitfield, Wildwood Trust’s director general said: “All of the bears we care for at Wildwood have been rescued just like Lucy and Mish, who quite simply would not be able to survive in the wild.

“Their journey is an extraordinary one, but they’re not alone. They represent the struggle of wildlife to exist in its natural habitats in the face of the climate and nature crisis. We will give these cubs the best life possible, despite their sad start."

“We hope someday to see species such as lynx, wolves and potentially brown bears reintroduced to wild places around Britain, through the idea of rewilding.”

 Wildwood Trust received worldwide acclaim for their rehabilitation of two brown bears, Fluff and Scruff, who were rescued in Bulgaria six years ago. They pair have recovered fully after suffering years of physical and mental trauma when they were held in an abandoned breeding facility under horrific conditions to be shot for ‘sport’.

It was as a result of its impressive reputation in this field that the charity was contacted to help provide a permanent woodland sanctuary for Mish and Lucy in April 2019. 

The siblings were held in a temporary enclosure in Belgium, but this was not suitable for their long term care. They were in a crucial phase of their lives, where they needed lots of enrichment and the chance to develop proper bear behaviour, which is much harder without their mum to teach them. 
 
They needed to explore, play and learn to forage naturally. And they had to be brought to the UK before winter made travelling harder. Wildwood Trust launched an appeal to raise £250,000 to build a new woodland bear sanctuary and transport the bears safely to Britain where they resided at the Trust’s Kent park until their Escot home was ready.