Wisconsin DNR Helps Rescue Trapped Bear Cubs

MILLTOWN, Wis. (AP/WCCO) — The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says a Polk County community has helped rescue two bear cubs that were trapped in a tree.

Officials on Thursday said a landowner near Milltown called the DNR after hearing distress cries over several hours over the weekend and finding the bear cubs' snouts poking out of a hole in a cottonwood tree. The cubs had climbed into the tree's hollow trunk and part of the tree had collapsed in on them.

Wildlife rehabilitator Tammi Larson tells the St. Paul Pioneer Press their mother wasn't around and had probably been killed. Larson says she gave the cubs some watermelon to help with dehydration.

The Milltown Fire Department sawed a larger hole into the tree.

"We cut a hole in the tree and then we all backed off and waited," Phil Dorn, a DNR conservation warden, said. "The cubs crawled out and ran back into the woods."