Orphaned bear cubs settle in at animal sanctuary in new photos

Rescuers say they found four orphaned bear cubs shivering underneath the deck of a Nevada house over the weekend, with no parents and nowhere to go.

Now they have a home, and on Wednesday, the animal sanctuary that took them in released photos of the cubs settling into their new digs. The bears were born sometime in January, Fox 11 reports.

"You have four orphaned cubs at the same time from the same mother. That is indeed rare," Nevada Department of Wildlife spokesman Chris Healy told KTVN.

The owner of the house in Stateline, on Lake Tahoe, said she first spotted the cubs with their mother under the deck in March. But last weekend, wildlife officials discovered the mother had died. They say they're not sure how it happened.

Those officials made the call to transport the bears to the Animal Ark sanctuary north of Reno, which agreed to take them in.

"These cubs probably would have turned into the 'juvenile delinquent' cubs that are taught by birth mothers to become garbage bears," Healy told KOLO. "With this we're probably going to be able to put them into a place where, hopefully they become wild bears."

The new photos show the young bears looking around, with tags on their ears.

Each of the cubs weighs about 7 pounds now. In order to prepare them to live in the wild, sanctuary workers say they'll give the animals a diet of mostly natural foods.

But it won't come cheap. As the cubs grow, feeding each one could cost up to $100 per week, KOLO reports. The sanctuary is asking for donations.

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