Manitoulin Transport recently delivered six tons of dried dog food to Bear With Us, the largest bear rescue center in Ontario that cares for around 100 black bears, Trucknews.com reports.
This 12-skid delivery is part of 34 tons of food the fleet has delivered in the last two years to help feed injured and orphaned black bears.
Feeding the bears is one of the organization’s costliest expenses, particularly during the critical periods before and after hibernation when their food intake spikes. They often go through more than one skid of dog food a week.
“They eat like there’s no tomorrow,” Sandy Donald, director of Ontario Wildlife Rescue, told Trucknews.com, adding that the center relies heavily on donations from pet food companies that provide expired or damaged dry dog food.
Jeff Smith, Manitoulin Transport’s vice-chairman, says the initiative is one of many ways the carrier gives back to the community.
“Trucking businesses – unfortunately, anybody who’s on the highways – could inadvertently have collisions with wildlife. So, we felt that this was a good way to give back,” he adds. “A lot of these bears, [for example], have been either orphaned in the springtime or in tragedies where the mothers have been killed on the road and now you have orphaned bears that need to be taken care of until they can get big enough that they can let them out and back into nature again.”
Full story here.