Young bear found with broken legs along highway saved

A young bear is on the road to recovery after being found along the side of a highway in Parry Sound, suffering two broken front legs.

OPP constables Danielle Shank and Nicholas Villeneuve got the call and arrived to find the bear lying on the shoulder of the roadway.

"Originally, it wasn't moving too much, so we did a quick assessment and then noticed he was moving quite a bit. His head was moving around, and he was looking at us," Villeneuve said.

An injured bear is found lying along the shoulder of a highway in Parry Sound, Ont. on July 24, 2022. (Supplied)

The officers said the bear, thought to be roughly a year old, was in "pretty good shape" despite the broken limbs after being hit by a car.

The two constables waited with the yearling, directing traffic to keep him safe, while staff with Bear With Us, an animal rehabilitation centre, arrived to pick him up.

"The bear did show that it had quite a bit of life in it, so we managed with the help of the police officers to get it into a transport crate," said Mike McIntosh, Bear With Us president.

McIntosh said the young animal underwent a complicated surgery three days later "that required six hours of work to put these bear's legs back together."

A bear is in a rehabilitation centre after breaking both its front legs when it was hit by a car along a highway in Parry Sound in July 2022 (Supplied)

McIntosh credits the heroic actions of the officers and the veterinarian for saving the bear.

"The bear didn't have a chance if it wasn't for the consideration of the two Ontario police officers, to begin with, and then the expertise of this wildlife veterinarian."

The veterinarian will remove the pins from the bear's legs in three to four weeks to begin rehabilitation to help him walk again.

McIntosh hopes to be able to release him back into the wild sometime in October.