Beloved black bear celebrates 30th birthday bash with special cake and gifts

Aspen Valley Wildlife Centre in Muskoka Ont., celebrated a very special milestone for one of their beloved black bears, Furley on Jan. 31, 2025. (Supplied)

A local wildlife sanctuary up north celebrated a very momentous milestone for one of their beloved black bears, Furley.

To mark her big three-oh, volunteer DonnaLynn with Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary baked a scrumptious peanut butter-yogurt frosted cake, “which Furley enjoyed with plenty of enthusiastic lip-smacking.”

Unlike the other bears at the Muskoka sanctuary, Furley remains awake during the winter months as she requires year-round feeding and her routine medication.

Opening her eyes to the world on Jan. 31, 1995, volunteers at Aspen say she spent the first 17 years of her life in a small cement enclosure at Springwater Provincial Park, where she was fed through the winter as visitors came to see her.

When the park closed down in 2013, Furley was transferred to Aspen Valley, where she now experiences the soft green earth and white fluffy snow beneath her tough paws.

Aspen Valley staff say they worked to teach her how to hibernate naturally by reducing her food intake in the fall. However, due to her ongoing medical needs, she stays awake during typical hibernation periods.

Despite this, volunteers say Furley thrives in her spacious home, enjoying a nutritious diet of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and fish—her favorites being salmon, cherries, grapes, and watermelon.

The sanctuary is also celebrating all of her bear friends with new enrichment toys designed to provide sensory and motor stimulation. These gifts, made possible by generous donors, hope to enhance the well-being of Furley and her fellow bear squad: Sasha, Clover, Honey Pot, Paddington, and Clyde—whose birthdays also fall between late January and early February.

It’s safe to say Furley enjoyed her big birthday bash, with three decades behind her and many more moments to cherish up in the beautiful north.