Three bear cubs are in good condition after their den was disturbed by construction on Old Dublin Road in Peterborough Monday.
New Hampshire Fish and Game Conservation Officer Shawn MacFadzen was called to the scene when the construction crew discovered the cubs. He said the crew had been putting in a septic tank, and when they cut down some trees, one tree landed on a brush pile, and a bear ran out.
“They were taking apart the brush pile, then they heard the cubs,” he said.
When he arrived, MacFadzen found the cubs out in the open. In seven years with Fish and Game, he said this was the first time he’d dealt with a situation like this.
“They were cold,” he said. “And with how close the house was and with the construction, we knew that the mother bear wasn’t going to be coming back to pick them up.”
MacFadzen said he and Fish and Game’s biologist made he decision to move the cubs.
“They were more than likely going to freeze to death, so we got them out of the den and transported them,” he said. From there, the biologist took them to Kilham Bear Center in Lyme.
Ben Kilham, who founded Kilham Bear Center in the 1990s, said that the cubs are doing well.
“They got here at about one o’clock on Monday, and they’re all in good shape,” he said. “They’re all feeding well and sleeping well.”
Like all of Kilham’s rescued bears, the cubs will be rehabilitated and released. The cubs have been named, with the male being named Fitz and the two females named Willa and Billie. The names came from the town name of Fitzwilliam, from where the bear center was initially told the cubs came.