A US zoo will take the two orphaned cubs of a grizzly bear that was euthanised after it killed a hiker in Yellowstone National Park.
Park spokeswoman Amy Bartlett said the cubs' mother was killed in Montana because she ate part of hiker Lance Crosby, 63, and hid the rest of the body - abnormal behaviour for a female bear defending its young.
"Normal defensive attacks by female bears defending their young do not involve consumption of the victim's body," the park said.
Crosby died from traumatic injuries suffered during the attack.
The two female cubs faced death, too, unless a zoo would accept them.
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"They are too young to survive in the wild on their own," Bartlett said.
"If we would have left them, they would have suffered and died."
The Blade newspaper (http://bit.ly/1Klhdbc ) reported on Friday that the Toledo Zoo in Ohio was already planning a brown bear exhibit and has agreed to take the female cubs.
