Bear cubs see discarded Christmas trees as the best gift ever, Tennessee rescuers say

A bear rescue operation outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has discovered something unexpected about cubs.

Give them a Christmas tree to play with and they’ll stay happy for weeks ... like a big cat.

Appalachian Bear Rescue learned this by accident, after an IGA grocery store in Tennessee donated its leftover Christmas trees a few years ago.

The cubs actually cuddled with the dead trees, like big rag dolls. They loved the fragrance, the feel and most of all the mobility of the trees.

“We don’t think about it often, but black bears depend on trees,” Appalachian Bear Rescue Executive Director Dana Dodd told McClatchy News.

“Trees provide safety, particularly for cubs. Mom often parks her cubs in a tree to keep them safe from predators. Cubs also love to play and a pile of trees creates a perfect cubby playground.”

The agency got a truckload of trees this year for its cubs, who are not known for being gentle. Rough play will eventually reduce the evergreens to compost. At that point, the scraps attract the kind of tasty bugs cubs love to snack on, Dodd said.

The comfort offered by the trees helps the agency with a challenging mission of raising orphaned cubs until they are strong enough to live in the wild. The nonprofit is based in Townsend, Tennessee, a region that has plenty of bears due to its proximity to the Smoky Mountains.

This week, Appalachian Bear Rescue released a set of triplets, who were orphaned in August at just seven months of age, according to the rescue agency’s Facebook page.

The three bears weighed between 26 and 33 pounds each when captured, and bulked up to between 102 to 123 pounds each when released, Dodd said.

This story was originally published January 13, 2021 at 3:29 PM with the headline "Bear cubs see discarded Christmas trees as the best gift ever, Tennessee rescuers say."