A British wildlife sanctuary’s two rescue bears, 4 year-old sisters Mish and Lucy, broke out of their enclosure and into the food stash on Monday, where they proceeded to absolutely annihilate seven days’ worth of their snacks – mostly honey. CBS News reports the carb overload made them sleepy, docile, and easy to return to their enclosure, where they promptly passed the fuck out.
“Our experienced keeping team acted immediately, following established safety protocols, and successfully used recall training to encourage both bears back into their enclosure without the need for any intervention,” said Wildwood Devon in a statement after the incident. “This was an isolated incident, and we are conducting a full internal investigation to understand exactly how it happened and to ensure robust measures are in place to prevent a reoccurrence,” the park wrote on Facebook. “While the structural integrity of the bear enclosure remains uncompromised, we take any operational lapse extremely seriously.” Cops are investigating the escape as per procedure.
Mish and Lucy are not “zoo animals” but rescues who were abandoned by their mother in a snowdrift in the mountains of Albania in 2021. There were multiple attempts to reintroduce them to the wild but it became clear to conservationists that they would not survive on their own, so they live out their days on the 40 acre preserve populated by other bears, wolves and arctic foxes.