Bearing up under delay

Cages being built with volunteer labor and donated materials for two homeless bears at the Betty Honn Animal Adoption Center in Henderson are not as close to completion as was hoped on Friday.

The cages were expected to be finished early this week, but now officials say they will be done on Friday.

The cages are being built to temporarily house 1,000-pound Manfred, a 9-year-old Kodiak bear, and 900-pound Tuffy, a 14-year-old grizzly bear. Each 10-foot-tall cage is 44-by-24 feet with a 20-by-24-foot containment area attached where the bears will wait when handlers are in the main cages, Jordan Desario, spokesman for the adoption center, said.

The bears were given to the center on Oct. 20 by their previous owner, Bill Vergis. The animals had been living in horse trailers that Desario says were filthy and filled with feces. They spent the summer in the horse trailers, which reached extreme temperatures.

The animals remain in those horse trailers as they await the completion of their new homes, but the trailers are cleaned daily with pressure hoses, Desario said.

The cages will be suitable to become permanent homes for the bears, he said.

The center has permission to keep the bears only 30 days because it already has the maximum number of exotic animals allowed under its permit.

Already 13 days have passed, but even with the deadline approaching, Desario said finding the bears a new home is not the highest priority right now. Completing the cages and seeing to the bears' health is more important.

Desario admitted that in the back of their minds adoption center officials hope that city officials will allow the bears to remain longer.

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