Officials: 300-pound bear found wandering in Elizabeth neighborhood
The rare bear sighting brought out a watch party on Erie Street in Elizabeth.
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Residents in Elizabeth woke up to an unexpected guest on Thursday morning – a 300-pound bear.
Officials first attempted to get the bear off a tree in the backyard of the home where it was originally spotted. But the bear then got down and wandered around the neighborhood some more.
Cristina Rollins tells News 12 New Jersey that it was her home where the bear was first spotted. She says that it had a brown nose and was “just chilling up in the tree.” This was at her home on Delaware Street. The bear was first spotted around 5 a.m.
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The state Department of Environmental Protection wrote in a statement “A 300-pound untagged male bear was safely removed from the city of Elizabeth this morning by Fish and Wildlife staff and relocated.”
Rollins says that she has never seen anything like this before. She says that when officials first arrived to capture the bear, it ran through the backyard of other homes.
The bear was captured a block away on Erie Street. Wildlife officials used a tranquilizer gun to knock the bear out. It will be relocated back to the wild.
Officials say that is the time of the year when bears emerge from their winter dens.
