Workers at Ted's Automotive got the surprise of a lifetime earlier today when a small black bear wandered into their shop just after noon.
Do bears poop in the woods? Yes. Do they also sometimes poop in automotive shops? Apparently, yes.
Workers at Ted’ s Automotive got the surprise of a lifetime earlier today when a small black bear wandered into their shop just after noon.
The bear was spotted shortly beforehand at the auto yard in Venture Industrial park, but the 80-pound yearling wasn’ t content with looking at the cars outside the shop. It eventually wandered all the way into the back of the garage at Ted’ s where it left employees a little gift. Owner Kyle Reid said it was a unique experience.
“It was a generally interesting Tuesday,” he said, adding that he didn’ t panic when he first saw the bear. “I just kind of, shooed the bear out.”
The young bear took the hint and left garage, an employee kept the bear contained in the yard so it couldn’ t get away. From there, the fuzzy visitor made his way up a tree at the north end of the yard, where it would get its last good view of Lac La Biche before being tranquilized and removed from the hamlet.
An armed wildlife technician arrived on the scene to monitor the situation while he awaited backup from local Fish and Wildlife enforcement.
During the hour-and-a-half-long wait, workers from the adjacent Job Corp Building and another nearby business gathered nearby to watch the scene. The conservation officer then told the small crowd to disperse so as not to agitate the bear.
Just after 2 pm, Fish and Wildlife officers arrived with a bear trap and other trapping tools. First, officers tried to jab the bear with a jabbing pole, to little effect, as the bear was too high in the tree. They then used a dart pistol to sedate the animal with terazol, a tranquilizing agent. About ten minutes after being hit by the dart, the bear tumbled from the tree, hitting the auto shop’ s fence on the way down before falling to the ground. Fish and Wildlife officer Sam Pidwerbeski said the bear didn’ t suffer any injuries from the fall.
“The public might think that dropping from a tree might be damaging to the bear, but as long as it doesn’ t land on its head its usually pretty good,” he said, adding that the fence likely helped more than it hurt. “The bear kind of hit the fence and it slowed its descent.”
Officers then loaded the bear into the trap and brought it back to the local office for assessment. Pidwerbeski said it was a best-case scenario for the bear, which hadn’ t come into contact with any unnatural food sources like garbage cans, and was a good candidate for release about 100 kilometres north of Lac La Biche.
“It didn’ t appear to be into any attractants, it didn’ t appear to get into any unnatural food sources, so really this was the best candidate for a bear [to be released],” he said.
Reid said he was happy that officers could remove the bear from his yard without taking its life.
“I preferred that - you don’ t want to have to murder an innocent animal for making a mistake," he said.
Pidwerbeski agreed that the animal was likely there by mistake, as it was at an age when it would have just left its mother’ s side.
“We observed it as a one year old yearling - basically, this would have been its first year on its own, and that’ s when he’ s going to get into the most trouble,” he said. “They’ re not sure what to do, they’ re looking for food, they’ re very confused. That’ s likely why it came into town.”
With the bear safely back in the woods without incident, Pidwerbeski said the operation went about as well as it possible could have, noting that the public did the right thing by calling Fish and Wildlife officers, staying out of their way during the procedure, and being cooperative.
After the bear was loaded into the trap and carted away and the afternoon entertainment had wrapped up, it was time for employees to get back to business at Ted’ s.
“We’ re definitely playing catch up,” said Reid. “It’ s going pretty well.”
He reminded the public to take all measures to prevent bears form coming into contact with civilization, like locking up garbage bins, not approaching the animals, and calling Fish and Wildlife if a bear is observed.
