Man pleads guilty to taking two bear cubs from Northern California den

The 2 tiny bear cubs are pictured after their restoration by California wildlife officers. They've since been launched again into their native habitat.

(California Division of Fish and Wildlife)

A Siskiyou County man pleaded responsible to stealing two weeks-old bear cubs from a Northern California den in 2019, the California Division of Fish and Wildlife stated this week.

Cody Setzer, 29, of Yreka took the cubs after they had been estimated to be lower than 4 weeks outdated, authorities stated.

The investigation started in March 2019, when Setzer contacted wildlife officers, claiming that he had discovered the cubs alongside Freeway 263, north of Yreka.

“A wildlife officer grew to become suspicious of Setzer’s story when no bear tracks or habitat had been discovered on the location the place Setzer claimed he had discovered them,” the Division of Fish and Wildlife stated in a launch.

The cubs had been taken to the division’s Wildlife Well being Laboratory in Rancho Cordova, the place DNA testing revealed they had been most likely born within the Sacramento River Canyon in northern Shasta County, practically 100 miles south of the place Setzer stated he discovered them.

“Throughout the investigation, wildlife officers decided Setzer and a co-worker at a neighborhood timber administration firm took the cubs from a den inside a tree that had fallen throughout an entry highway to a piece web site,” the division stated.

The co-worker took officers to the location, the place they collected proof from the den that had been destroyed by the co-worker and Setzer, wildlife officers stated.

The cubs’ mom was by no means discovered.

The pair had been finally turned over to Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care, the youngest ever taken to the ability, officers stated, and after rising sufficiently old to outlive within the wild, they had been launched into their Shasta County habitat on April 28, 2020.

Setzer pleaded responsible in November to expenses of possession of a prohibited species and obstructing a peace officer, the Division of Fish and Wildlife stated this week. He faces $2,290 in fines, 200 hours of neighborhood service and 12 months probation — together with his looking and fishing privileges suspended — after his responsible pleas within the bear case and one other unrelated case.

An extra 90-day county jail sentence can be stayed upon completion of his probation.