Grandfather bear

dead at 24

Elizabeth, a well-known bear at Grandfather Mountain, was euthanized after a long battle with arthritis.

Grandfather Mountain spokeswoman Landis Wofford said Elizabeth had experienced trouble walking for years and her pain had gotten much worse in the past month.

Elizabeth was 24 years old. She came to Grandfather Mountain from Ohio with her brother, Walter, in 1984.

The two cubs became famous when they were adopted and raised by Mildred, Grandfather’s longtime bear mascot.

The story of Elizabeth’s adoption was documented in a movie by the late Hugh Morton which is shown regularly in Grandfather’s Nature Museum theater. Because bears are normally hostile to cubs that are not their own, Morton felt it was a history-making event when Mildred proved willing to nurse the 10-week-old cubs.

North Carolina was celebrating the 400th anniversary of the first English settlement in the New World in 1984, so the two tiny cubs were named Walter and Elizabeth to honor Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I.

“The habitat staff remembers Elizabeth as a bear that loved to eat and who was sweet and laid back in her old age,” Wofford said.