Monday, May 29, 2006
Young black bear causes stir in S.W. Roanoke
"He was just walking down First Street," Ray Parker said of the animal. "I thought it was a dog."
Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times
Roanoke City police officers corner a black bear that had found its way through S.W. Roanoke on Monday.
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Hot and hungry from a morning of working on an office renovation job in Roanoke’s Old Southwest neighborhood, Ray Parker was ready for a break early Monday afternoon.
“I went down the road to get some lunch,” said Parker, who didn’t think much about the big, black creature crossing the road ahead of him.
“He was just walking down First Street,” Parker said of the animal. “I thought it was a dog.”
Then Parker took a closer look and realized he was sharing the road with a black bear.
“It was wild,” he said later as he watched Roanoke police and animal control officers surround the yard where the bear had taken refuge. “It’s not every day you see a bear like that.
“But I just kept going. He ain’t bother me. I ain’t bother him.”
Bears aren’t unheard of in the city.
Several times in recent years black bears have wandered into Roanoke, only to be tranquilized and hauled back to the woods.
This visitor, a yearling male estimated to weigh between 75 and 100 pounds, caused quite a stir in Southwest Roanoke for several hours Monday.
Before it was over the bear had left behind a trail of at least two broken windows and a lot of hot and sweaty police and animal control officers, who covered some ground on foot before they were able to tranquilize and capture the animal.
Sgt. Stan Smith was among the first officers to locate the roaming bruin.
“This is a first for me,” said Smith, a 36-year veteran of the force.
The department had been getting calls about bear sightings for the past three days, officers said.
Smith said Monday’s calls started about 10:45 a.m. when the bear was spotted near Towers Shopping Center.
After swimming across the Roanoke River near Smith Park, the bear crossed some railroad tracks and headed up into the Highland Park area of the Old Southwest neighborhood.
Billy and Barbara Williams of Vinton were just sitting down to a picnic lunch near her office at the Jefferson College of Health Sciences when a passer-by in a truck stopped and told them they had company.
“Someone yelled, 'There’s a bear right there,’” Billy Williams said. “We looked over and he was standing there, not 15 feet away.
“He was a rough-looking character. He looked like he was as scared of us as we were of him.”
The couple slowly retreated.
“We ate lunch in the truck,” Williams said.
Eventually the bear found a shady spot under a pine tree behind lawyer Tony Anderson’s office at the corner of Albemarle and Second streets.
Virginia Game Warden Greg Funkhouser said it’s not unusual for bears to end up out of their element in the late spring and early summer.
“In May, June and July, the sows are in heat,” Funkhouser said. “Any yearling cubs they have with them, they kick them off.
“They can get confused.”
While a half-dozen policemen kept watch, animal control officer Brian Noto retrieved a dose of ketamine, the drug he needed for his tranquilizing darts.
With a loaded dart, Noto eased toward the bear at about 1 p.m. He moved to within a few feet of the animal, aimed and fired.
“I got him!” he shouted as the bear loped off down the street.
A few minutes later the animal ended up in the back yard of a home farther down Second Street. Officers watched as it paced around the fenced-in yard, growing wobblier by the minute.
Residents of a nearby apartment complex watched from a balcony as officers moved in with a net and nooses to subdue the fading animal.
“Run bear, run!” one of the spectators shouted.
And that’s what the bear did, leaping the fence and scooting back up Second Street. On foot and in cars, officers gave chase.
Chris Kowalczuk joined in because he didn’t want the bear to cross Elm Avenue and go into the Festival in the Park festivities.
Kowalczuk, an attorney, was on his way to his office on Second Street when he noticed the commotion and stopped to check it out.
“I never thought I’d end up chasing a bear around my office,” he said.
But it was Kowalczuk who, as the bear crossed Mountain Avenue, helped head the creature off and herd it into an outside foyer at Trinity United Methodist Church.
“You’ve got him cornered,” Kowalczuk shouted as officers arrived.
Noto tried to dart the bear a second time but it was unclear if the shot was a good hit. Jumping around the church’s side entrance, the bear knocked a storm window out, the glass shattering on the sidewalk.
Noto wasn’t surprised that the first dose of ketamine wasn’t enough.
“We started out low,” Noto said. “Animals react differently.
“He was very hyped up.”
Trying not to agitate the bear further, officers quietly guarded the area until another dose of ketamine arrived. Noto took a third shot at 3:05 p.m. Twenty-five minutes later officers moved in again. The bear managed another effort to escape, breaking another storm window before officers were able to use a net and nooses to immobilize it.
Quickly, they put the bear in an an animal holding truck. A small spot of red blood was on the bear’s face, but otherwise the animal looked only exhausted.
“He’ll be fine,” Funkhouser said.
Funkhouser said the bear would be monitored for a few hours, then likely released deep in the national forest.
