The two orphaned grizzly bear cubs that arrived at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo from Montana in June have names: Scout and Ranger. The public picked them, and the vote raised $18,000 for wild grizzly bear conservation along the way.
How the names were chosen
The Colorado Springs zoo opened voting on August 7 and closed it on August 25, 2026. A $5 minimum donation bought a vote, and staff from departments across the zoo had narrowed the field to three sibling pairs, female name first: Meadow and Forrest, Aspen and Yarrow, and the winner, Scout and Ranger, a pair chosen to represent the people and organizations working to protect grizzlies and the country they live in.
“The cubs have been soaring through milestones, and we can’t wait for them to reach the next one: being named,” Erika Furnes, senior animal keeper in Rocky Mountain Wild, said when the campaign opened.
Every dollar donated to vote went to The Vital Ground Foundation, a land trust based in Missoula, Montana, the cubs’ home state. Between guest donations and the zoo’s own conservation funds, the total came to $18,000. Founded in 1990, Vital Ground works across the Northern Rockies and Inland Northwest connecting public-land strongholds with protected private ground, and has protected or enhanced more than one million acres of grizzly bear habitat with its partners.
“By joining in partnership to raise awareness of the challenges wild grizzly bears face, voters will help advance crucial efforts to protect key habitats and prevent conflicts for these grizzly cubs’ wild cousins in the Northern Rockies,” said Ryan Lutey, Vital Ground’s executive director.
Why these two cubs are at a zoo at all
Scout and Ranger are the first orphaned grizzlies to come to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in more than 20 years. Theirs is the same path that brought an orphaned polar bear cub to Assiniboine Park Zoo in August and two orphaned mountain lion cubs to the Phoenix Zoo. Their mother, an adult female grizzly, was euthanized in Montana after a long history of conflicts with humans and attractants. The zoo has been direct about that backstory, calling it a reminder of what happens when wild animals come into conflict with people, and it is precisely why staff chose a group that works on preventing those conflicts to benefit from the naming campaign, rather than a general wildlife fund.
Meeting the neighbors
The cubs cleared quarantine with a clean bill of health and moved into behind-the-scenes indoor and outdoor space in Rocky Mountain Wild, the exhibit voted the #2 Best Zoo Exhibit in North America in USA TODAY’s 2026 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards.
Their newest milestone is “howdies,” supervised introductions through protective barriers, with Emmett and Digger, the zoo’s 21-year-old grizzlies. The cubs will never share space with the older bears. The point of the exercise is that Scout and Ranger will rotate through several yards as they grow, so they need to be comfortable both with moving between spaces and with having grizzly neighbors on the other side of a fence. Emmett and Digger are doing their own training in other yards at the same time.
When can guests see Scout and Ranger?
The zoo has said it expects to be several weeks yet before the cubs explore the main grizzly yards in guest view, and that it will announce the moment they do. The cubs were eight months old when the naming campaign opened in early August. Anyone planning a trip up the mountain this fall should watch for that update, because a pair of young grizzlies working out a new yard is worth timing a visit around.
