Sunday, May 23, a black bear wandered for several hours in a neighborhood in the greater Montreal area.
A black bear cub stirred up an entire district of the greater Montreal area for several hours on Sunday before being finally fell asleep and captured after several hours of stalking in the gardens and in the trees.
Alerted in the early afternoon, the police immediately cordoned off several streets in a neighborhood of Dorval, a town west of Montreal where the Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau International Airport is located, said a spokesperson for Montreal police, Raphaël Bergeron. Residents of the area have been urged to stay at home. Then began a hunt which will have mobilized a few dozen police officers, firefighters, intervention agents from the Ministry of Wildlife, volunteers from the Rescue animal rescue association, and kept residents and curious in suspense.
The animal, a cub of several months, was initially “confined in the courtyard of a residence”, explained the spokesperson. He then took refuge at the top of a tree. Ministry game wardens armed with rifles administered tranquilizers to him, which did not have an immediate effect.
“The Wildlife team injected three doses of sedative, but the bear remained alert and came down from the tree before fleeing into another yard,” said the Rescue animal rescue association on Facebook. The plantigrade finally climbed up a tree, at a low height, where he ended up dozing off. Firefighters were standing by to deploy airbags in case he fell. He was gently captured around 7:30 p.m., to the relief of a whole neighborhood.
There is a bear roaming around in Dorval in Montreal’s West Island. Animal control authorities are on the case. Police asking people NOT to go to Dorval to check it out, and if you’re in the area stay inside. This vid was taken in Dorval: pic.twitter.com/2c9W1mwUzt
– Dan Spector (@danspector) May 23, 2021
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“We managed to catch him with a pole and bring him down to the bottom of the tree, where he could be secured”, according to the association which participated in his rescue. “The bear cub can be released in an environment that will be more suitable for him”. According to the police spokesperson, the presence of an ursid so close to the metropolis of Montreal, particularly in an urban area near an airport, is “very rare”.
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