PRICHARD - Earlier this winter, around the beginning of January, a young black bear cub was seen wandering the Prichard area of Shoshone County, foraging for handouts at local residences.

The male cub posed no immediate threat, but it was a bear nonetheless, and Idaho Fish and Game lent one of its big culvert traps to Don Berger, who lives near Prichard and has experience working with traps, an IDFG officer verified.

Berger positioned the trap on his property and waited for the cub to reappear. On the evening of Jan. 11, the bear - lured by bait inside the culvert - wandered into the trap, tripped a wire and was caught.

Unharmed, the cub was transported to Hayden the next day and delivered to Bud and Mary Vanderbilt, two IDFG rehabilitators. Once the bear arrived at the Vanderbilts' facility, it was soon climbing the walls and acting rambunctiously, reported IDFG Conservation Officer Josh Stanley - a good sign that the cub was healthy and would likely survive.

Hopefully, Stanley said, the bear will eat its fill, fall back into hibernation and awake later this spring. Then, it can be taken out to the forest and released.

"That's some of the hope we have for him," Stanley said. "He was in moderate condition when we trapped him."

Stanley said the Prichard cub is probably about one year old, born last year - most likely in early spring - while its mother was still hibernating.

Because bears are sheltered in their dens throughout the winter, it's very rare for a bruin to cause problems in January, Stanley said. In the six years he's been working for IDFG, he has only encountered two cubs outside their dens in the wintertime, Stanley added.

Sometimes a cub will enter its den without enough nourishment to last the whole winter, he said. If that's the case, the cub may leave the den in search of food long before other bears have emerged.

"One of the main reasons for this is lack of a huckleberry crop in the fall," Stanley said, explaining that bears bulk up on huckleberries before denning.

But last fall's berry crop was a good one, he pointed out, which should have provided more than enough nourishment for hungry bears. So, there were possibly other factors to consider.

The bear may have been ill, Stanley said, which would have contributed to malnourishment, causing it to leave the safety of the den. Or perhaps the young cub was abandoned by its mother, or separated from her somehow, and had nowhere to seek shelter when winter set in.

During a standard hibernation period, bears won't leave their warm dens until spring has arrived and forage is available.

"There's no set emergence," Stanley explained. "It's so dependent on, one, their body condition going into winter, and two, the length of the winter."

Luckily, Berger and IDFG captured the cub before it died of starvation or cold weather. The lack of snow was helpful: Normally, IDFG's culvert trap is stored in Mullan during the winter, buried under several feet of powder. January's odd weather made it possible for the trap to be moved up to Prichard.

Stanley warned onlookers to stay away from deployed live traps, especially if game has been caught. Curiosity can be dangerous where bears are involved.

"They are wild animals," he said, "and they're very capable of causing lots of damage to people."