"My den is your den," to paraphrase a popular Spanish phrase.

At least that's how local bear expert, Dean Oswald, responded to a shipment of two bear cubs Monday afternoon-the victims of a logging accident in the Alpena area. The cubs, Bonnie and Clyde, were separated from their mother when a logger felled a tree on their den. The mother ran off and a sibling of the cubs was killed.
As Oswald tells it, the logger took the two cubs to his home. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources heard about the situation and confiscated the two animals, but had no real plan for their care. The DNR considered euthanizing the cubs, but as word of their plight spread, more and more people contacted Oswald wondering if he could provide a home for them in his outdoor bear habitat north of Newberry.

"We called Elaine Carlson, who is a biologist out of Mio for the State of Michigan, and she said they hadn't made up their minds what they're going to do, mainly because it's a TB (tuberculosis) area," explained Oswald. "They didn't know if they were going to euthanize the cubs or place them in another zoo, possibly out of state.
"I said, why put them in a cage in a zoo? Why not put them in a place where there is a natural habitat? I told them I was willing to take them."
Oswald then put several state senators and representatives to work on the problem. "I called Senator Jim Barcia's office and talked to him, and from there we contacted Mike Prusi, who is our Senator. Then we talked to Representative Matthew Gillard out of Alpena. [Rocker and outdoorsman] Ted Nugent's people even called me. I had about a hundred phone calls from people from around the state saying we heard about these cubs and can you get them?
"That's what started things rolling. I found out today (Monday) they were going to bring them to me and they're here now."
Oswald has three different habitats ranging in size from five to 10 acres, into which he separated the bears before last year's mating season. Hopefully, he said, all the males are in one habitat and the females in the other two. He is building a fourth habitat. Each separate area has trees and water running though it.
Oswald currently houses 28 bears; his oldest, old Grizzly, is 24 years of age. The average life span for a bear is 25 to 30 years old. "They go through about a ton and a half a week now. I buy meat by the ton from Escanaba."
The cubs are being fed out of a bottle at this time. Jewel Oswald, Dean's wife, makes up the formula out of canned milk, rice cereal, yogurt and eggs. The cubs demand feeding about every four hours with a call that sounds close to "maaa maaa."
Oswald guessed the cubs were born in January, figuring that the life cycle of bears in downstate Alpena is about two weeks ahead of the U.P.
Oswald's Bear Ranch is located off County Road 407 (Deer Park Road), about eight miles north of Newberry.