A 400-pound black bear known as Glen Bearian, or Meatball, visited the Glendale area three times in 2012 to plunder trash cans and play cat-and-mouse with the authorities, who twice returned him to his home in the Angeles National Forest. The next stop? It was to be a wildlife sanctuary in Colorado, but now his current caretakers at a San Diego County sanctuary are making plans to build him a permanent home.
Behind each abandoned -- and rescued -- animal, there’s a story.
Johnny Benton tends to two young colts that were abandoned and left to starve on a ranch in the Central Valley. Now recovering in the Sierra National Forest, they are being retrained for use as pack horses.
Matthew Simmons gets a lick from his wolf dog, one of 29 that were rescued from small cells where they were bred and imprisoned in Anchorage, Alaska. They now live in a 20-acre wolf sanctuary in the Los Padres National Forest.
Mike Meyers coaxes two donkeys off their rescue trailers as they arrive at their temporary home in Peaceful Valley ranch, north of Los Angeles. In Sept. 2011, Meyers’ airlifted 120 donkeys more than 2,500 miles from Kona, Hawaii, where they had become overpopulated. More: What started as an act of compassion has become a calling for Meyers(Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times)
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Missouri resident Diane Maxwell picks up her new cat, Boots, from Cats Are Purrsons Too, a cat rescue, in Chicago. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)
Veterinarian staff examine an injured fawn found next to a burned-down house during the 20,000-acre Dahl wildfire. The fire burned tens of thousands of acres south of Roundup, Mont. (Matthew Brown / Associated Press)
Dennis Christen of the Georgia Aquarium feeds a beluga calf being rehabilitated at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward. (Mark Thiessen / Associated Press)
