PETALUMA (KPIX) — It’s not uncommon to see wildlife in urban areas these days but, on Sunday, a visitor to one Petaluma neighborhood became the talk of the town.
At 2:30 a.m., Ralph Haney’s dog began barking so he went outside to discover that his fence had been ripped open.
“We have a few possums around, an occasional skunk,” Haney said. “There’s no way a small rodent did that. Something broke that fence. That took some force.”
Sheila Katz saw what did it when she got home in the early-morning hours.
“I got out of my car and looked down the driveway and saw a bear lumbering, running by, and said, ‘Oh my God, it’s a bear!’ It’s a bear! It’s a bear!’” Katz remembers.
One neighbor snapped a photo of the bear as it crashed through backyards, trying to escape a growing number of police and animal control officers. The terrified bear sought the only safety it could find, climbing 85 feet up a redwood tree.
Mark Scott, executive director of North Bay Animal Services was on the scene and saw it happen.
“He did that in about, I don’t know, about six seconds? So, he’s a big boy — it was amazing to watch,” Scott said.
For the rest of the day that’s where the animal stayed, hiding as best it could behind the foliage as scores of people arrived to take in the unusual sight.
“It’s wildlife! It’s something that we don’t see normally and I guess it’s just the whole mystique of what a bear is,” said Aubrey McMillon.
“It’s one thing to get a mountain lion but you don’t usually hear about a bear,” said Eliza Fischer.
At one point a flock of crows began circling the tree, making a fearful racket, when they discovered what was in it.
Doris Duncan, executive director of Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue, said she understood the fascination with seeing something so unusual but hoped people would understand how terrified the bear was in its predicament.
“He got stuck and all the people here have scared him up the tree and he does not feel safe to come down yet,” she said. “Plus, it’s daylight. He knows that he’s going to have some problems if he starts roaming through these streets.”
She said it appeared to be a very healthy male black bear, weighing maybe 500 pounds. It was too high up to use a tranquilizer dart safely so the plan was to just wait for nightfall and let it come down on its own.
“So, we’re hoping to keep everybody away and then, when it gets dark tonight and nobody’s around, he’s going to go back home where he belongs,” Duncan said.
Director Scott with Animal Control, said they would stay in the area until that happened.
“Nature’s going to take its course anyway,” he said, “but we’re going to be here to monitor it. We want to be able to say he’s now back home.”
Scott said mountain lion sightings are fairly common in the neighborhood because there are deer in a nearby park that draw predators into the area. He said that may have been what attracted the bear as well.
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Source: sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com.