Page 15 - Dec24

FOLLOW THE CUBS’ JOURNEY
Visit bit.ly/350cubs to see Takelma
& Sama’s journey from Oregon to Kansas via the King Air 350 in a
video by Chelsey Schartz, marketing manager at the Sedgwick County Zoo. Follow the cubs’ growth on the zoo’s Instagram and Facebook pages.
by MeLinda Schnyder
TPhotography by Chelsey Schartz/Sedgwick County Zoo
wo black bear cubs orphaned this summer in the Oregon wilderness quickly found a new home in Kansas with the help of a rescue mission flown by a 2001 Beechcraft King Air 350.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife discovered the male and female cubs when their mother was killed in a shooting incident in July. Deemed too young to survive on their own, the three-month-old siblings spent a few days at Wildlife Safari in Winston, Oregon, before the King Air arrived to take them to their new home at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas.
One-off missions like this have a profound impact on the lives of the animals involved. These philanthropic flights join the hundreds of hours general aviation pilots fly every year via organizations dedicated to animal rescue flights. These range from rehoming pets for a better chance at adoption to rescuing and relocating wildlife; see the box on page 18 for suggestions on how to get involved.
Here’s how an airplane most often used for inmate transport helped these motherless cubs find a new way of life.
A call for help
Wichita’s Sedgwick County Zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and is home to nearly 3,000 animals of more than 400 different species. The
DECEMBER 2024
247-acre zoo has been recognized across the globe for its support of field conservation programs and successful breeding of rare and endangered species.
The zoo had humanely euthanized their beloved black bear Mitch in December 2023 due to age-related arthritis and heart disease. Mitch had spent nearly all his 20 years at the Sedgwick County Zoo after being rescued from a private residence in Illinois as a cub. With a vacant enclosure in its North American Prairie section, the zoo was on a waiting list for new black bear residents. They jumped on the chance to raise the Oregon cubs, then quickly started working on the logistics to make it happen.
Sedgwick County Zoo is a not-for-profit zoo that opened in 1971 in northwest Wichita. It is funded through a partnership between the Sedgwick County government and the Sedgwick County Zoological Society, Inc.
Fortunately, a former lieutenant for the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office was working security at the zoo the day the call came in that a pair of cubs halfway across the country needed a new home. He heard the zoo team talking about quickly finding safe transportation for the bears, so he mentioned that Sedgwick County had an airplane at its disposal.
“The ex-lieutenant reached out to me to see what our schedules were because this flight had to be done quickly,” pilot Shauna Sherwood said. “Our schedule supported it, so an email was sent to get the sheriff’s approval. Within 24 hours from the first email, we had a plan in place. We were in the air within a day of that.”
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 13