A young wild black bear gave staff at California's Sequoia Park Zoo an unexpected surprise Friday morning when it decided to drop by for a visit with the zoo's three resident bears. The bear seemed "really, really interested" in Tule, Ishung, and Kunabulilh, the three captive American black bears living at the zoo in Eureka, and "introduced himself to all of them," said zoo director Jim Campbell-Spickler, per SFGate. The wild bear, estimated to be about a year and a half old, appeared calm and curious, with Campbell-Spickler speculating that the furry intruder might simply have been "looking for a friend, though maybe that's anthropomorphizing."
The zoo's education curator, Christine Noel, first spotted the bear exploring toys and interacting with the captive bears through the habitat fencing before the zoo opened. It's unclear how the bear breached the zoo as no fences were damaged. Campbell-Spickler suggested it may have simply climbed a tree and hopped over. While the zoo has seen several wild visitors, including skunks and foxes, this marks the first time a wild bear has dropped by. "Overall, he was a very polite visitor," Noel noted.
This could be the same, possibly lonely, bear that was spotted last month by Eureka residents, per the Los Angeles Times. Zoo staff, joined by local police and a wildlife warden, coaxed the bear back out into the adjacent 67-acre Sequoia Park after about 20 minutes. Though some social media users joked that the bear might have wanted to be a zoo "ambearssador," police used nonlethal shotgun projectiles to haze the bear in an effort to keep it from venturing near people and developed areas again.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
