ARCADIA : Black Bear Captured in Park for Return to Wild

State fish and game officers captured a 150-pound black bear in an Arcadia park early Thursday, hitting it once with a tranquilizer dart.

Officers will relocate the bear in the Angeles National Forest by today, said Bob Schlichting, a spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game.

The bear had been rummaging through trash dumpsters in Arcadia Wilderness Park just after midnight, avoiding a trap baited with marshmallows, strawberry jam and sardines, Schlichting said. Officers had set the trap this week, hoping to catch a bigger bear that had been overturning trash cans, pawing fruit trees and jumping into hot tubs in foothill neighborhoods. That bear had been described as roughly 350 pounds.

The bears probably are wandering down from the forest to look for water and raid avocado, peach and other trees that bloom in the summer, Schlichting said.

The department’s policy is to relocate wild animals that do not cause damage or threaten humans, he said. But wild animals that stalk neighborhoods and show no fear of people are killed.

In May, Azusa police shot and killed a 350-pound bear that wandered onto a residential street one morning, just as children were getting ready to go to school. That bear was hit twice with tranquilizer darts, but the drugs had little effect.