Bear Taken From Tree in Bremerton

By Brynn Grimley, Bgrimley@Kitsapsun.com
Kitsap Sun

May 29, 2006

BREMERTON , WA

When Rebecca Doyle heard the pounding on her front door early Monday morning, she thought her roommate was joking when he said it was the police.

But, one look out her side window convinced Doyle something was going on, she just didn’t know what.

"They didn’t say it was a bear and they wouldn’t let us leave our house," Doyle said. "I’m from Maine and I have never had a bear in my tree before. Then I come here, and a bear gets stuck in my tree."

Doyle and other residents along the 1600 block of Gregory Way were asked to stay inside their house by Bremerton Police and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officials Monday morning because a black bear had climbed into a tree. The tree was between two houses on the corner of High and Gregory in downtown Bremerton. The black bear climbed up the tree after traveling through much of downtown Bremerton, starting in Manette and either taking the bridge or swimming across the channel into Bremerton, said Sgt. Ted Jackson with the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Around 6 a.m. Monday morning Bremerton Police began to receive calls that a black bear was seen in the area. They followed the bear, hoping to push it out of town. But when the bear climbed up the tree around 7 a.m., they asked the Department of Fish and Wildlife to come, Jackson said.

By 8:30 a.m. the bear was shot with a tranquilizer. But, because the shot hit a bone, the drugs did not completely get into the bear’s system. At 9:15 a.m. the bear was tranquilized again, this time in its backside. A few minutes later the bear fell about 40 feet from the tree and into a net waiting to break its fall. Wildlife officials then loaded the bear into a bear trap. The bear’s heart beat was regular and it was looking around, both good signs, Jackson said.

"There is a high population of bears here in Kitsap County," he said. "We have already taken six bears out of Kitsap County this year."

This is the first bear to be removed from Bremerton this year, but it is not unusual for younger bears like this one to wander into the city, Jackson said.

The bear was taken from the neighborhood shortly after it fell from the tree and Wildlife officials planned to drop it far enough into the woods where it could "be a regular bear" and not find its way back to the city.

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