WINNIPEG -- Three black bear cubs rescued May 15 in the Kenora, Ont. area are without their mother, but not without hope as they’ve been given a temporary home elsewhere in Ontario.

Mike McIntosh, president and founder of the wildlife rescue group, Bear With Us, said Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) staff from Kenora rescued the cubs, which are about four and a half months old, after their mother had to be put down.

McIntosh said the mother had become too accustomed to finding easy food sources from bird feeders and garbage cans outside cottages. MNR officers had to sedate the orphaned cubs to capture them, starting them on a journey to safety that ended more than 1600 km to the east.

“MNR staff drove the cubs to their base airport in Dryden where a plane just happened to be headed to Sault St. Marie for maintenance. The cubs were flown to Sault St. Marie, then I met them half way between the Sault and our facility near Parry Sound,” said McIntosh.

When they arrived, the cubs were thin because they’d been without their mother for quite a period of time McIntosh said.

“They’re drinking formula out of a bowl and they seem to be adjusting quite well to their new food source. It has to be somewhat different from mother bear’s milk.”

The cubs will remain among the 87 bears now living at Bear With Us until the summer of 2022. While at the facility, the cubs will be shielded from human contact as much as possible. McIntosh said doing that helps maintain their natural fear of humans so they’ll have a better chance of survival once they’re returned to the wild.

“The biggest concern for the safety of the bear cubs is that they’re not really a dangerous animal to people in most cases but people, by their behaviour, can cause bears to come into conflict with people,” said McIntosh.

He said cottagers can reduce the likelihood that bears will be drawn to and habituated to human contact, making it more likely they’ll need to be put down, by taking some simple but important steps. These include getting rid of bird feeders near cottages and ensuring as little food as possible ends up in garbage cans.

McIntosh said there are some misconceptions about how a mother black bear with cubs will behave when encountering humans. He said since black bear encounters have been recorded in North America going back to about 1900, there has never been an instance in which a black bear has killed a human in defence of her cubs.

“That’s not the same story when it comes to brown bears or grizzlies. But, when it comes to black bears, they’re very tolerant of human presence. If the situation is extreme, somebody tries to run up and grab a cub, they may nip or slap or scratch them but there’s never been a serious injury,” said McIntosh.

“These animals are not as dangerous as people perceive.”

- With files from CTV's Danton Unger.