Crowd forms as bear tranquilized in backyard Transcona tree by conservation officers

Lindy Bichlbauer woke up to the familiarsounds of her neighbour's dog barking Tuesday morning and didn't think much of it.Little did she know there was a black bear next-door that later scrambled up a tree in her backyard and drew acrowd.

"I didn't call anybody. There was already people here before I got out of bed," she said.

A group of police, conservation officers, firefighters and paramedics zeroed in on theLethbridgeAvenue area in Winnipeg after hearingreports of a bearnearKildareAvenue W. around6 a.m.

Officials found the black bear seven metres up a leafy tree in Bichlbauer'sbackyard.

Police said the bear did notactaggressively, though officers kept people in the neighbourhood from getting too close to the animal.

At about 8:15 a.m., a conservation officer jabbed the bear with a tranquilizerdart attached tothe tip of a long pole. It fell from the tree but is in OK condition, said Joe Johannesson.

"The bear is on the ground and it's looking good right now,"saidJohannesson, a conservation officer with Manitoba Sustainable Development. "The operation went very well."

Watch how conservation officials got the bear out of the tree:

Bear in Transcona backyard tree

6 years ago

Duration 0:56

A small black bear caused quite the commotion for a couple of hours in Transcona Tuesday morning.

The56-kilogrambear was placed in a cage and removed from the area. Itwill be monitored for the next 24 hours before being released.

"Once it wakes up and appears to be moving OK, it will be driven safely away from the city and released into the wild," a Manitoba Sustainable Development spokesperson said via email.

"The bear is a male, about two years old, and would be on its own by this age anyway so chances of survival should be excellent."

Johannesson said this is the second or third report of a black bear in the city this year. One was reported on Bishop Grandin and Fermor area about a month ago, he said.

Neighbours told to stay indoors

The bear meant a late start to the day for some of Bichlbauer's neighbours.

Nancy Kunkel, who lives onLethbridgeAvenue nearby,said police knocked on her door at about 6 a.m. to tell her to stay indoors because of a bear nearby.

Lori Heindle lives on Kootenay Crescent, which shares an alleywith Lethbridge.

Her daughter called her at 6:45 a.m. to make sure the family dog wasn't outside because she heard there was a bear in the neighbourhood.

"I came out to try and see and I thought, 'Well, maybe I am a little bit crazy to do that,'" she said.

She has never seen a bear anywhere near her Winnipegneighbourhood, but the black bear doesn't make her feel any less safe.

"I'm a country girl so I've seen them quite a few times but in the city and that I wouldn't want to come out in the morning and be greeted by a bear, that's for sure."

Bichlbauersaysshe, too, is unfazedby the wild appearance andis glad conservation officers were able to tranquilize the bear rather than beforced to shoot it dead.

"I was just more worried for the bear," Bichlbauersaid.

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