The beautiful Lions Tigers & Bears ranch is located just outside of Alpine, California in sunny San Diego County. The ranch is 93 acres in size. There is a volunteer office, picnic area, barn, farm animal encounter area and the habitats for our rescued big cats. Part of the barn serves as an onsite medical care center which allows us to perform routine medical exams and minor surgeries without transporting the cats.

Blossom & Delilah's Most Excellent Adventure

Blossom and Delilah are the lone residents of the Little River Zoo in Norman, Oklahoma following the closure of the zoo earlier this year due to continuing financial woes. Faced with money problems, zoo officials tried to keep up with maintaining its standards of care as they found homes for the 240 animals that called the zoo home. But sadly, for Blossom and Delilah, the care was difficult to keep up. As a result, their diet was neglected as were the grounds where they were kept. After several months of looking for a home, officials were desperate to place the two ill-nourished black bears. In fact, negotiations had begun with a “big game” ranch where the bears could be hunted and killed by animal gamers.

Eager to place the two bears in a safe environment, Lions, Tigers & Bears founder and director, Bobbi Brink, began working with the zoo to load and transport the bears to the Ranch in San Diego, California. Lions, Tigers & Bears is currently in the midst of building a new “Bear Habitat” for its resident black bear, Liberty, and with some additional modifications, the Bear Habitat could easily handle two more bears.

While construction continued on the Bear Habitat, work was also being done for a new trailer that could handle the trip to Oklahoma and bring the bears safely back to California. New equipment was needed such as air conditioners and cages that would make transportation a much healthier ride.

Prior to the completion of the trailer, Bobbi got news of the heat wave that hit the mid-section of the country and flew to Oklahoma to check on the bear’s situation and their health. She found the bears to be in moderate health, a little overweight from the unusual diet they’ve been fed but otherwise they were faring well. Lions, Tigers & Bears contracted with a local veterinarian who concluded that the bears were healthy enough to make the journey.

Final efforts were made to complete the new trailer and only a week after returning from Oklahoma, Bobbi was off again, this time with trailer in tow, ready to bring the bear’s home.

Currently, all the staff and animals at Lions, Tigers & Bears are anxiously awaiting their return and looking forward to meeting the newest family members at the Ranch.

The “Bear Habitat” is still in need of much funding. The new 3-acre habitat will be located adjacent to the lion’s habitat and will feature an animal and people friendly design. Click Here to check out the progress of the habitat. Also, Liberty makes regular postings to her Twitter page so please follow her and get the latest on all that is happening at the Ranch. .

Learn more about Liberty by reading "A Bear's Story", Liberty's tale of how he came to LTB.

The Journey Continues

Conditions at The Little River Zoo were less than perfect, far less. Because of the zoos financial troubles there wasn't enough money to keep up the maintanence required to house wild animals. There wasn't enough resources to properly feed the remaining animals and that includes Blossom & Delilah. They lacked nutrition and were fed a variety of food not ideal for a bears diet. A good meal plan is certainly in order for these two black bears.

The pens in which the bears were kept also needed much help. In fact, the surroundings were so over-grown Bobbi needed to rent special equipment to help move the trailer closer to the bears area and ultimately, had to rent a lift to raise the cages up and over the growth.

Bobbi and crew coaxed the two bears into the trasport cages after a few nights of little sleep and dealing with temperatures up to 108 degrees. After getting some media attention from the local press who wanted to ensure their Oklahoma audience that the bears were going to a good home, Bobbi fired up the truck and headed west where a new home awaits Blossom & Delilah.

Meet Tray and Erin, Tray would be the one in the cowboy hat. When Bobbi first went to Oklahoma to check on the condition of Blossom & Delilah she drove out of the city about 75 miles to find Tray at his place called Arbuckle Wilderness Park. She needed to find someone who understood the animals and who could help her to do some welding.  A trooper that he is, Tray agreed to come and meet Bobbi at the Little River Zoo the very next day and see if he might be able to help get the bears out of there.

After taking a good look at what was needed, Tray decided he would come back during the week and build two smaller lock downs within the one large lockdown. A great idea and much needed.These would have guillotine drop down doors that Bobbi could drop down with a rope to trap the bears when they walk into the small area. So, while Bobbi was back in California prepping and getting the trailer ready, Tray and Erin went to the Little River Zoo and built the trap doors. He also agreed that while Bobbi waited for the bears to walk in and trap them, he would come with his forklift and help the crew get the cage out of the trailer and moved thru woods to cage and back.

This is Matt. Matt used to work at the Little River Zoo before he lost his job due to the circumstances that closed the zoo. He love the animals especially the bears, and he spent the entire week before we got there chainsawing and axing down trees and bushes so the crew could have a trail and way to pull the cage back to the bear enclosure to get the bears out. After about 4 days of this very hard work in the extreme heat he thought he was having heat stroke and went to the hospital. It turns out, Matt had kidney stones and the doctors did not want him to leave the hospital but, he roughed it out and finished it all.

Video from Blossom & Delilah's Excellent Adventure