About Us

Born and raised on a farm in South Western Ontario, Mike has always had an appreciation and understanding of animals. Starting with “mini farms” of rabbits, pigs, goats and horses Mike has never been a stranger to looking after animals.

An avid photographer since childhood, Mike has always valued the natural environment and wildlife which he started photographing as a child. Fascinated by wildlife and their behavior, Mike became fascinated about perceived dangerous “predators” and humans misunderstanding of these amazing creatures. Mike was especially intrigued by bears given their high intelligence and unique cognitive abilities.

A frequent visitor to the Algonquin Park and area to enjoy and photograph wildlife and nature, Mike moved permanently to the north purchasing an old farmhouse with some acreage (89 acres) with a creek and pond in 1990. He met Audrey Tournay, founder of the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary (AVWS). Mike volunteered at the AVWS helping injured and orphaned wildlife specifically bears. It wasn’t long after assisting at the AVWS that Mike realized there was such a great need to help the Black Bears and Humans coexist. Mike decided he wanted to devote more of his time to helping the misunderstood bear. He decided to approach the OMNR in 1991 about his favored bears and told them he would like to help orphaned cubs, injured bears and also assist the public with “nuisance” bears, more correctly known as human-bear conflict resolution.

Thus in 1992, with the help of some local friends interested in wildlife rehabilitation plus the cooperation of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR), the Bear With Us Sanctuary and Rehabilitation Centre for Bears was formed by Mike McIntosh. It began with his first bear in April 1992, a big old blind bear from a zoo in eastern Ontario. This bear, who Mike and Audrey Tournay named Mishoomish , remained at Bear With Us until his passing. Since its inception, Bear With Us has assisted 311 orphaned and injured bears return to the wild and is a permanent home to a select few bears that cannot return to the wild.

In 1999 Bear With Us was incorporated as Bear With Us Inc. and became a registered Canadian Charity.

Bear With Us Inc. and Mike McIntosh are authorized annually by the OMNR (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources) to rehabilitate and release orphaned wild bear cubs, live trap and relocate perceived nuisance bears and keep black bears in captivity. Since 1992 Mike through Bear With Us has been doing just that while still holding down a regular job at a local automotive dealership.

Mike does speaking engagements to interest groups such as campers in Ontario Parks, local cub-scout packs as well as schools. To Mike, educating people through his presentation “Understanding Bears” is critical to assisting bears and people to coexist .
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Meaningful Quotes:

“Appreciate, view with respect, maybe take a photo, allow them to exist, coexist. They will if we will”. -Mike McIntosh

“If you talk with the animals, they will talk with you, and you will know each other. If you don’t talk with them, you will not know them, and what you do not know, you fear. What one fears, one destroys.” ~Chief Dan George

“When we return wild animals to nature, we merely return them to what is already… theirs, For man cannot give wild animals freedom, they can only take it away.” ~Jacques Cousteau~

“Bears keep me humble. They help me to keep the world in perspective and to understand where I fit on the spectrum of life. We need to preserve the wilderness and its monarchs for ourselves, and for the dreams of children. We should fight for these things as if our life depended upon it, because it does.”
- Wayne Lynch (“Bears: Monarchs of the Northern Wilderness”, 1993)

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” ~Mahatma Gandhi