This is a photo of my great great grandfather, in New Mexico, with a black bear cub, probably taken around 1910. As the story goes, he went on a bear hunting trip in Mexico, and came across this cub. He was concerned that the mother might come around, so he kept his distance, but the cub followed him. After a few days, he decided that the mother must have either died, or abandoned her cub for some reason. He never did shoot a bear on this trip, so this bear came back home to New Mexico with him.

He kept the cub outside when he got home, but would feed it (not sure what though). Apparently, the cub stayed around the house for a couple of years, showing up less and less frequently, until it finally stopped coming around all together.