SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, June 6, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — A troublesome black bear, whose Wednesday morning visit to a Salt Lake City neighborhood had residents in a tizzy, has a new home in rural Utah County, seemingly none the worse for wear after being tranquilized and tumbling from a tree onto the pavement below.
The first alert to the bruin’s worrisome presence was issued by Gordy, the golden retriever.
At first, no one listened to Gordy’s warning, including his owners, who unwittingly dragged him from their backyard and into the house so neighbors would not be awakened by a barking dog at 7:40 a.m.
But before too long, Gordy’s owners got the message, about the same time a group text alerted human neighbors in the Marmalade District near Salt Lake City’s Capitol Hill, that the bear, estimated to be about 2 years old and more than 100 pounds, had wandered through and was perched 40 feet high in an old-growth tree.
Photo courtesy Salt Lake City Police Department
911 operators were called, police and firefighters dispatched, along with personnel from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Soon the first responders were on the scene, unfurling police tape, and posting warnings on social media, telling people to stay away.
While dozens of onlookers jockeyed for position, hoping to catch a glimpse of the bear, a DWR sharpshooter took aim and fired, hitting the bear with a tranquilizer dart.
Photo by Patrick Benedict for Gephardt Daily
Minutes later, the tranquilized bear seemed to lose consciousness and tumbled roughly 20 feet before landing with a thud.
Officials had planned to catch and lower the bear to the ground by means of a basket attached to a special hoist, but the bear fell before they were in position, its impact with the pavement causing bystanders to gasp.
DWR workers quickly caged the blacked-out bear, moving it to the back of a pickup truck where they examined it for injuries and prepared for a trip to central Utah where it would make its new home.
“We’ll give a little health evaluation to make sure it’s OK, and we’ll watch as they release it,” said Scott Root, from the Utah DWR.
Bears have fallen before, not usually so far or so hard, Root said, “but they’ve done OK in the past, in the few times that something like that’s happened. So we’re hopeful.”
Root said the bear was administered a drug to counteract the tranquilizer before being tagged in anticipation of the drive south.
Josh Peterman, Gordy-the-dog’s owner, told Gephardt Daily that at first, he had no idea what provoked the pooch to bark so incessantly.
“But then just a couple minutes later, my neighbor texted and said, ‘There’s a bear in the tree (near) your house.’ I thought he was joking. Sure enough, there was a bear just about 5 or 8 feet up the tree. … It looked like he was chasing a squirrel, and every time the squirrel would go up, the bear would go up, too.”
Peterman said he was further blown away when he checked his front porch Ring camera and found a recording of the wayward bear as it dashed in front of the home.
Neighbor Michael Aaron, who was also cued into the bear’s presence by the local text line, said he too was stunned when he read the message: “There’s a bear in Michael’s tree.”
He quickly realized he was the Michael neighbors were talking about.
“Of course, I went outside, still wearing my robe, and there was a bear, just right there in the crotch of the tree. So yeah, we were all out here doing a stupid thing and getting really close to a bear,” he said with a chuckle.
He also saw the bear hit the ground, striking its head.
“It was one of the things I did not want to watch. … And, I mean, it was right here,” Aaron said, gesturing to the asphalt. “But there’s no blood, so I’m heartened by that. I was just thinking, ‘There’s no way that that thing came down without breaking something.’ But from what they told me, they think it will be OK.”
Video released by DWR late Wednesday afternoon showed the bear seemed uninjured, as it scampered into the hills after being sprung from a cage in the wilds of Utah County.
In an accompanying statement, the DWR theorized the bear paid a visit to the Marmalade neighborhood in simple search of vittles.
“Our biologists believe it may have migrated to the lower elevation area looking for food and water. It’s not unusual to see bears migrating around after hibernation, and occasionally, they will end up in residential areas,” the DWR statement said.
“We tranquilized the bear, loaded it into a culvert trap in a truck and performed another on-scene health assessment at the relocation site before it was safely released into better bear habitat in Utah County. We hope he stays beary safe and keeps his paws out of trouble.”
