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Ontario’s new animal welfare inspection squad has launched an investigation into Marineland after a worker there said she saved three cubs from the bear enclosure.

Maddie Black, who works with the Niagara Falls, Ont., tourist attraction, said she was cleaning out the bear dens with her colleagues last Thursday when she heard what sounded like a “puppy cry.”

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“I look in the den and had seen three mama bears and had noticed there were babies in there, too,” Black told The Canadian Press in an interview this week.

She said she was worried the male bears would kill and eat the young cubs.

“I knew if we didn’t get them out of there, they had no chance,” she said.

Black called the park’s veterinarian, she said, asking if the bears could be tranquilized while they remove the cubs. The vet told her to talk to her supervisor.

Her supervisor “said we should probably leave them, but if we can get them out safely, it would be a good idea,” Black said.