'Taco Bear' gets new name while recovering after 10-hour trip to Windsor, Ont.

An injured black bear cub that survived a 10-hour drive to southwestern Ontario while being fed Taco Bell has been renamed "Windsor" following its new found connection to the Rose City.

The bear was picked up from the middle of a highway near Cochrane, Ont. during the Labour Day long weekend by two men who put the animal into the back of their van.Officials say they retrieved a young black bear from inside a van in Windsor, Ont. (Source: Myriam Armstrong)

Animal welfare officials from Pet and Wildlife Rescue (PAWR) in Chatham-Kent assisted Windsor Police in retrieving the bear from Windsor, before transporting it to a bear rescue centre in Sprucedale, Ont.

"It looked like he'd been hit by a vehicle, which the people who took him back to Windsor surmised," said Bear With Us Founder and President, Mike McIntosh.

"And the reason they were able to take him all the way to Windsor was the bear was out of it, like, semi-conscious."

According to McIntosh, the bear is believed to be nine months old and sustained severe head trauma along with serious body bruises, but no broken bones. He suggests that's the reason why the bear was transported to Windsor without issue and why it seemed lethargic when officials retrieved it.

"He's come right around. I wouldn't say he's better yet. He still walks like he's pretty sore, but he's eating and drinking like a little bear should. I would say he's probably 80 per cent recovered now."

McIntosh told CTV News no one called his bear recovery centre about an injured bear over the weekend until it was already in Windsor.

He said a quick Google search should have brought the Bear With Us website up immediately, noting an orphaned bear at this stage in life likely wouldn’t fare well without it’s mother in the wild.

"There was other ways to better handle the situation," he said. "Most people would call a Ministry of Natural Resources bear reporting line, which is 1-866-514-2327 and they'll probably find help to get the bear to a centre. Or they would be advised as to where the closest bear centre is and they can drop it off. So in this particular case, depending which highway they took going south, they went by two bear centres. That was us and another one called Aspen Valley over near Highway 400."

McIntosh said he expects the bear to be returned to the wild in the summer after it hibernates over the winter season at the recovery centre.

Meantime, officials at PAWR in Chatham say they've been inundated with people wanting to catch a glimpse of the bear, noting staff have used the recent exposure to advocate for wild animal welfare.

"We've had many phone calls and a lot of very curious people dropping by the shelter hoping to see the bear," said executive director Myriam Armstrong.

"You just never know what's going to happen. Also, we've taken the opportunity to talk a little bit about how to interact or not interact with wildlife and what not to do when you do find injured or orphaned wildlife."

Armstrong added, "Clearly there's a lot of interest in wildlife. So anybody who's interested in, doing some, work with wildlife, you know, there's less and less centers that that work towards rehabilitating wildlife. It is a big job to take on, sometimes rewarding, sometimes also really difficult. So there is, there's options for people who wants to do this as, as a career or even, you know, in your retirement, if you just love animals, there's a lot of options out there to make a big difference."

CTV News contacted someone who claimed responsibility for bringing the bear to Windsor, but the person declined an interview when reached.