Officials Take ‘Lost’ Bear Back to Forest

CANYON COUNTRY â€”  A 300-pound male black bear lumbered through residential areas until sheriff’s deputies and state Fish and Game officials tranquilized him and carted him back into the hills Tuesday night.

Game wardens said the bear was probably just foraging for food when it was sighted by a resident near Sierra Highway and Dolan Way. One of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who arrived about 10:30 p.m. said the bear appeared “lost.�

While deputies waited for game wardens to arrive, the bear led them on a low-speed chase that included a sheriff’s helicopter. At one point he ambled down Soledad Canyon Road, a major thoroughfare, but because of the late hour, caused no traffic problems.

Deputies attempted to shepherd the bear out of residential areas into the dry bed of the Santa Clara River, but finally decided it was safer for everyone that the bear be tranquilized and carried out.

“It was just unfortunate that somebody saw him because he probably would have wandered back into the hills,� said Patrick Moore, spokesman for the Department of Fish and Game. He said black bears prefer to stay in mountain regions and are usually no threat to humans.

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Moore noted that initial reports referred to the animal as a brown bear, a much larger species that is more aggressive than the black bear but has been extinct in California for decades. Black bears, however, come in a range of colors, and sometimes have brown fur, as this one did.

Regardless of its species’ docile reputation, this bear didn’t go easily. After a Fish and Game official fired two tranquilizer darts into the bear that appeared to have little effect on him, a deputy was dispatched to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia for extra tranquilizer medication, Moore said.

According to Patty Fleetwood, spokeswoman for the hospital, Thorazine, a tranquilizer that is “nothing extra potent or exotic� was given to the deputy to take back with him.

The drug succeeded in putting the bear into a semiconscious state and he finally went down near the Via Princessa MetroLink station. Eight deputies were needed to lift the still-struggling bear into a truck for transportation back into Angeles National Forest.

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According to Moore, the plan was to transport the bear as deep into the forest as possible, but only six miles into the trip the bear regained consciousness and began stumbling around in the truck’s bed, trying to jump out while the truck was moving.

Fish and Game officials quickly stopped the truck and the bear hustled quietly into the forest.

Moore advised residents of mountain-fringe areas not to feed wandering bears.

“The best thing for people to do is keep their trash cans covered,� Moore said. “Some bears will try to take the easy route to food and get it out of trash cans. Those are the ‘garbage bears’ that many times have to be destroyed because they are always coming down into human territory.�