The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Staff Reports
Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2018 11:21 AM
Appalachian Bear Rescue Releases Summitt Bear, Named After The Late Pat Summitt, Back Into Wild In Sullivan County
ABR started caring for Summitt in March. The bear was underweight and "severely anemic and dehydrated" when he arrived at the Townsend-based bear rescue.
Staff at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine performed the school's first-ever black bear blood transfusion on Summitt, using blood from one of Zoo Knoxville's black bears named Finn. It was only the second black bear blood transfusion to be performed in the United States, according to ABR.
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Appalachian Bear Rescue is caring for
its first new bear of the year after welcoming a 14-month-old male bear
to its facility on Monday.
The bear was found on a farm near Bristol. ABR said they were alerted by
TWRA officers that they were going to pick up a bear who had been
observed lurking near a barn for 48 hours and seemed thin and lethargic,
and was not behaving normally.
The TWRA officers found the bear lying down near a stream, and he was
oblivious to their presence. The officers took the small bear to the
University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine, where ABR staff
met them to take possession of the bear.
ABR said the bear is a male yearling, about 14 months old, and weighs
only about 22 pounds. By comparison, a yearling coming out of
hibernation should weight between 35 and 50 pounds, according to ABR.
