State Drops Bid to Return Bear to Wild

The state Department of Fish and Game on Friday abandoned its controversial fight to seize an infant bear from a San Bernardino County veterinarian, concluding that Coco the cub was born in captivity and thus should not be returned to the woods.

Paul Jensen, the department’s deputy director, said an investigation has persuaded officials that Coco “is basically a zoo bear” and that it would be inappropriate to “rehabilitate” her and reintroduce her to the wild.

Jensen declined to say where department officials believe Coco was born or speculate on how the the black bear cub wound up at the Big Bear City animal hospital owned by veterinarian Kent Walker.

He acknowledged, however, that the department recently completed an investigation of allegedly illegal bear breeding at the Moonridge Animal Park in Big Bear Valley. A zookeeper who asked not to be identified said three cubs were born at the Moonridge facility around the time Coco was adopted by Walker. But the employee said records show the newborns were eaten by their parents--a practice common in the wild.

In an interview Friday, Walker said Fish and Game’s conclusion about Coco’s origins was “news to me” and stood by his account of how the cub ended up in his care.

“I’m convinced Coco was born in the wild,” Walker said. “I don’t have any information leading me to believe otherwise.”

In a related development in the bizarre case, a judge Friday ordered Coco placed in “protective custody” because of death threats made against the animal--once the sweetheart of the San Bernardino Mountains.

San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Rufus Yent concluded that a telephone call last week from a person threatening to kill Coco along with a second, hitherto undisclosed threat persuaded him the cub should be boarded out of town until the legal tussle over her fate ends.

Walker said a woman left a message on his answering machine June 2, pledging to “take a potshot” at Coco and “hit it right between the eyes.”

Walker wants to ship the cub, now 22 pounds and more than four months old, to Bear Country, USA, a 50-acre wilderness park for bears in South Dakota.

The saga of Coco began when Walker reported that unidentified hikers had found Coco in snowy Holcomb Valley and delivered her to him on Jan. 30. The cub was just hours old, weighed seven ounces and still had the umbilical cord attached.

Because wild animals are the property of the state, Fish and Game officials moved to seize Coco for reintroduction to the wild. Walker maintained the effort would fail and result in Coco’s death because the cub had been “imprinted” with humans from birth.

Jensen said officials were skeptical of the story of Coco’s origins from the start. He said it was “implausible and illogical that you would find a 2-hour old cub . . . out in the snowy woods.”