A black bear spotted running through a Northeast Portland neighborhood early Wednesday morning was tranquilized and captured.
Julie Sabatier
Residents of Northeast Portland's Concordia neighborhood got quite the wake-up call Wednesday morning.
Police say they were notified a little after 3 a.m. that a bear was running through neighborhood yards.
The 125-pound black bear eventually ran up a tree. Officials tranquilized the bear and captured it, lowering it from the tree and carrying it to a cage as you can see in the video below:
Rick Swart of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said biologists examined the 2-year-old bear and found it to be in good health. Officials checked to see if the bear had been habituated to the neighborhood before deciding to release it back into the wild.
"We've determined he was not habituated to the area," Swart said. "If he had been habituated, there would have been reports of him rummaging through garbage cans and things like that."
Swart said the bear will be released within 24 hours, though officials haven't decided exactly where yet. They're waiting for the tranquilizer to wear off.
Earlier this week, a bear had been reported swimming in the Columbia River near Hayden Island.
Swart said that might explain how a bear got to such an urban neighborhood.
--Cassandra Profita
