What’s That Bruin Doin'

Web posted Wednesday, October 06, 2004

By RALPH D. PRIDDY, Staff
KAREN INMAN, LEFT, OF ST. JOHNS WILDLIFE CARE, and Deputy Sheriff George Letts examine a young black bear that was captured on Saragossa Street early this morning.

What’s that bruin doin’?
Cabbie spots wayward bear in downtown area
By PETER GUINTA
Staff Writer
A wayward black bear spotted on Saragossa Street early this morning certainly was furry, fuzzy and cute, but he was also in the way wrong neighborhood.

The bear, about 150 pounds of lean, mean berry-munching machine, belongs deep in the Ocala National Forest, and that’s where he’s been taken by Florida Game & Fish Commission officers.

He’s okay, just a little groggy from sedatives that Deputy George Letts had to give him. Bears don’t ride in police vehicles quietly.

According to the St. Augustine police, a taxicab driver saw the bear about 4 a.m. near Saragossa Street and called it in. Police officers searched the area and found him in a yard between Saragossa and Carrera streets.

They made a cordon to keep the bear in place and called Deputy Letts, who has been a volunteer with the St. Johns County Humane Society for six years and who also has a dart rifle and sleeping potions for trespassing wild animals.

Letts said he used an 8-inch dart loaded with Ketamine and Telazol, two magic drugs for bear slumber. He fired a dart, waited until the big Teddy Bear fell asleep and loaded him into the back seat of a Sheriff’s Office four-wheeler.

He said the bear was about 18 months old.

‘‘His mother is ready to have cubs again and probably ran him off,’’ Letts said. ‘‘That’s my guess. The last one I was called on, somebody got scared and shot it. But generally, they stay away from people.’’

They brought the sleepy bruin to the Humane Society and put him a cage for big dogs. Of course, he woke up and was not happy to find out that, not only did he have a headache, but he was also trapped with people staring at him.

Tina Walker, executive director of the Humane Society, said the cage would not hold up if he kept climbing and shaking it.

‘‘Just when you think there’s everything on this job you can see, I get a call at 6 a.m. and it’s a bear,’’ she said, laughing. ‘‘But if he gets agitated, that cage is not going to hold him.’’

She kept the humans back a ways, so the bear wasn’t pushed too hard.

Letts, who was waiting for wildlife officers, said he probably should give the bear another small shot. He hooked up a 2cc shot, and put it on a pole syringe.

After a second try, the sleepy bear laid out for a nap in the cool air.

The deputy’s wife, Dr. Jean Letts, said the bear’s story was sad: thrown from his den and wandering around lonely.

‘‘He’s 6 feet tall on his hind legs,’’ she said.

Letts said the usual diet of a bear is palmetto berries and Japanese plums and that bears are harmless to humans, even though this one’s mean-looking claws were about 3 inches long.

‘‘The only reason he would bite you is in a defensive move. You don’t want to put him in that position,’’ he said. ‘‘They have a very big range. Some other bear pushed him out of that range. It’s pretty common this time of year.’’