‘Abnormally tiny’ bear cub stumps experts at Arizona wildlife park. Meet Buddy the bear
An “abnormally tiny” bear cub is stumping wildlife experts at a park in Arizona.
Buddy the bear cub was rescued from a neighborhood in Tucson, and Bearizona Wildlife Park took the little guy in, according to a Dec. 19 news release posted to the park’s social media pages.
Experts assume Buddy is almost a year old, since most cubs are born in January or February, officials said. At 1 year old, the average cub should weigh approximately 70 pounds.
But he only weighs about 15 pounds — about what a 4- or 5-month-old cub should weigh, officials said. Yet he’s still “relatively healthy.”
“The math doesn’t work,” Arizona Game and Fish spokesman Mark Hart said in the release.
Buddy’s size isn’t the only puzzling aspect of the little cub’s history, officials said. Hart was also “stumped by the mystery of how the bear made its way off the Catalina Mountains if it was orphaned or abandoned.”
“If it got separated from its mother, regardless of why in the backcountry, how did a bear that small get all of the way off the mountain?” he asked. “We would have thought that a bear that size would have been picked off by a predator. A coyote, a mountain lion, or even another bear.”
What’s more, the cub has no fear of humans, officials said. By this age, it definitely should.
“We will never know the whole story, but if someone illegally fed this cub for months, it could explain his comfort around humans,” said Dave O’Connell, the chief operating officer of the wildlife park. “It might also explain why he is so small.”
Though the illegal feeding is not ideal, it may have ultimately prevented officials from having to euthanize Buddy because he was so comfortable around people, officials said.
Bearizona staff members are calling the peculiar case a Christmas miracle.
When owner Sean Casey learned the cub’s story, he said: “Well, it is Christmas time and this cub is abnormally tiny, so I think he might be an elf,” officials said. Then, “without missing a beat,” a staff member suggested naming the cub Buddy after the movie “Elf.”
Some took to calling him Buddy the Elf Bear in the comments.
Park visitors can meet him in his new quarantine area at the park.
Bearizona Wildlife Park is in Williams, about 175 miles north of Phoenix.
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