Dec. 21: Solo, cubs spared; they’ll be sent to a wildlife sanctuary

Robert Frykman, Special to the Star Tribune

Solo

By PAUL WALSH, Star Tribune

Last update: April 24, 2008 - 4:09 PM

Solo, the seemingly tame black bear that is hibernating with her two cubs under a northern Minnesota lake cabin, won the support Friday of Gov. Tim Pawlenty and soon will avoid being destroyed and instead travel with her little ones to a wildlife sanctuary in South Dakota or elsewhere, state officials said.

State Rep. David Dill, DFL-Crane, said that the state Department of Natural Resources told him Thursday evening that a sanctuary in the Black Hills is willing to receive the bears, making Pawlenty's reprieve unnecessary.

Friday, DNR official Bob Meier said that the Black Hills site is one option among several that the department is considering for the three bears.

Pawlenty said on his regular weekly radio show that he didn't want to see Solo put down, and that he might "grant a pre-holiday pardon for this bear."

Solo drew complaints last summer in Eagles Nest Township that she didn't fear humans and was getting too close for comfort. People have been feeding her in the summer and named her Solo because she's missing an ear, the result of an attack by an adult bear when she was a cub.

She also has a radio-collar placed by bear researcher Lynn Rogers, who is studying her behavior.

Dill, chairman of the House Game, Fish and Wildlife Committee, said Friday that the DNR "was on a mission to destroy the bear" because people have been "damn near petting the bear, and it's been going on for years."

He added, "I don't care how docile a bear becomes ... it's still a wild animal. Feeding bears, you can become a casualty."

Thursday, the state thought it had an arrangement to send Solo and the cubs to a sanctuary in Minnesota about 50 miles away. But Dill said there was a concern that Solo would leave the unfenced locale and return.

Meier, an assistant DNR commissioner, said the department is weighing the South Dakota sanctuary with "other options as well" for where Solo and her cubs will end up.

C.B. Bylander, outreach chief for the DNR's Fish and Wildlife Division, said Thursday that the department has heard from a "substantial" number of people who wanted the agency to spare Solo's life.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482

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