CA, US & World
Orphaned Bear Cub Recovering After Beanbag Round Injury
AUBURN, California (KCRA) -- A bear cub rescued as an orphan in El Dorado County underwent surgery at Gold Country Wildlife Rescue in Auburn, where doctors discovered a beanbag round and a plastic cap lodged in its injured hind leg.
Melissa McCartney, executive director of Gold Country Wildlife Rescue, said the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) captured the cub after residents noticed it wandering alone for over a week.
"People had noticed a bear going on over a week and they could not find its mother. They were hoping she would reappear," McCartney said. “So that's when CDFW will step in. They'll find a suitable rehabilitation center, in this case us.”
The cub arrived limping and with a visible wound on its hind leg. In an initial exam, X-rays revealed a cluster of small metal beads inside the leg.
"The radiographs initially showed us what looks like a very tight cluster of small metal beads," McCartney said.
Initially, the team decided the safest course of action was to leave the foreign body in place, as the cub was active and the wound appeared to be healing. He was started on a course of medications and started to show steady healing.
"One of the things we're always trying to balance in rehabilitation is we want these animals to stay wild. We want them to not be acclimated to humans. We want to give them every chance they have of getting back out into the wild," McCartney said.
However, the wound reopened, prompting surgery. During the procedure, doctors found a beanbag round and plastic cap.
“Radiographs showed what looks like a cluster of pellets. Those cluster of pellets were inside of a little fabric bag for a beanbag round," McCartney said. "That cloth doesn't show up on a radiograph. It also didn't show us that the plastic cap from the shell itself had penetrated the leg. So this poor little guy not only had the beanbag still in there, he had a plastic cap so that obviously all needed to be taken care of."
The team was able to remove the less-lethal round in an extensive and challenging surgery. The cub is now recovering and the wound is healing nicely.
CDFW stated it is unclear how the cub sustained the injury. While law enforcement agencies are trained to use beanbag rounds to haze adult bears, the general public is not permitted to use them.
"There are tons of ways for us to learn to be in a region with bears safely that don't have to come to this. But we also respect the fact that we don't know the story or the situation. So we try not to pass judgment. We are just here to do what needs to be done for the bear at the end," McCartney said.
Gold Country Wildlife Rescue hopes the bear will be able to join their three other orphaned cubs in the coming weeks and eventually return to its natural habitat in El Dorado County.
By: CNN Newsource
August 28, 2026
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