A 120-pound bear gave Delmar residents quite a scare Tuesday morning, July 3.
A woman watering her flower garden at 18 Salisbury Road came across a bear around 10 a.m.
She said the bear was less than 20 feet away, said neighbor Fred Strauss.
The bear then ran into the backyard of another neighbor’s home as the calls to Bethlehem’s 911 emergency line started ringing.
`I called 911 and they said, ‘Is this about the bear?’, and I said yes, this is about the bear,` Strauss said.
About one minute after Strauss’ call, police, along with an animal control officer, arrived on the scene, locating the bear on Capital Street, where it decided to climb a large pine tree to escape.
The bear was tranquilized and officers from the state Department on Environmental Conservation worked to weigh the bear before putting an electronic monitoring device on its’ collar.
The bear was then put inside a large cylinder crate where it was moved to Berne and released back into the wild.
Delmar residents have been on alert since last week as some people spotted a bear in the same vicinity.
`He has been sighted several times in the area since last Thursday,` Strauss said.
Neither the bear nor any residents were injured.
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