N.M. Agency Gets Static After Bear Suffers 7,200-Volt Jolt

A state agency was criticized Tuesday for tranquilizing a black bear atop a 25-foot utility pole without shutting the power off or using a net to break its fall.

To the horror of spectators, the woozy 150-pound bear fell off the pole Monday, bounced off a transformer and tumbled to the ground amid a cascade of sparks. The bear became tangled in electrical wire as it fell and received a 7,200-volt jolt when it hit the transformer, a utility spokesman said.

The female bear, believed to have wandered into town from the nearby Sandia Mountains, was taken to the Rio Grande Zoological Park, where she was doing well, officials said. The bear suffered an electrical burn on her right hind leg.

“We’ve received quite a bit of calls--primarily criticism,” said Mark Birkhauser, a conservation officer with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. “Public opinion in general seems to think it wasn’t handled as well as it could have been.”

A department officer shot a tranquilizer dart into the bear after it had been chased through a residential neighborhood. The bear was believed to have been searching for a lost cub. A 6-month-old cub was captured Sunday in a mulberry tree in Albuquerque.

The cub, which was being kept separate from the adult bear at the zoo, is fine, Birkhauser said.

“The main concerns of callers was that the bear was tranquilized while too high on the utility pole and no attempt was made to cushion its fall, and that electrical power wasn’t shut off before the animal was shot down,” Merrilyn Segrest, deputy supervisor at the Animal Humane Assn. in Albuquerque, said.