Search continues for bear wandering around Aspinwall

ASPINWALL, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Game Commission has shot a wandering bear with a tranquilizer dart, but it ran across a busy highway and darted into a wooded area in Aspinwall where it has eluded capture.

Someone called 911 to report a bear sighting before 6 a.m., and another call came in about 9 a.m. when someone saw the bear in the 200 block of Fifth Street, an emergency dispatch supervisor said.

Residents later spotted the bear in the Aspinwall Recreation Field off of Fifth Street. The bear was last seen with a dart in its backside climbing up a hillside toward Route 28 about 10 a.m.

“The bear was obviously worked up from all the people that were around it,” Wildlife Conservation Officer Dan Puhala said. “I did shoot it with a dart to knock it out ... Sometimes when there's a lot of adrenaline involved in one of these animals, the drugs have a limited effect.”

Puhala said it appears the bear ran across 28 to the woods between Camp Guyasuta and Firemen's Memorial Park. Officials will see if they receive any more reports about it, but ideally Puhala would like to relocate it, he said.

“We got the bear out of the populated neighborhood,” Puhala said. “It's probably sleeping it off in the woods somewhere.”

Puhala said since the bear is out of a populated area, there’s not much else they can do.

He described the bear as about a year and a half old, between 140 and 160 pounds. This time of year, adult bears ready to mate push away their “teenage” offspring, he said.

“They're getting dispersed, and that's when they get in trouble,” Puhala said. “They're looking for a place to go.”

Channel 11's news exchange partners at TribLIVE contributed to this report.

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