New Home Ahead for Big Bad Bear Called ‘Trouble’

“Trouble” isn’t saying why he broke into the city zoo. The 300-pound grizzly is too busy having a temper tantrum.

“He was beating on the bars and making a lot of big racket,” said Pat Lampi, curator of the Anchorage Zoo, who shot the 3 1/2-year-old bear with a tranquilizer dart after he broke into the zoo for at least the third time. “I just call him Trouble because that’s certainly what he has been getting into.”

Trouble took a wrong turn after waking up from his winter slumber. Instead of keeping to the Chugach Mountains that border Anchorage, he strolled into the city, romped through subdivisions, snacked on garbage and lounged on a deck or two.

He tore through the zoo’s chain-link perimeter fence or dug underneath to visit Jake, the zoo’s 1,000-pound adult grizzly bear.

Trouble raided the waterfowl feeders and ate cracked corn. He feasted on duck and goose food pellets. He killed “Mama Goose,” a snow-white goose that was a favorite with children.

“That miserable bear killed that goose, didn’t eat it, just killed it,” said zoo director Sammye Seawell. “Probably the goose was making such a racket the bear figured, ‘Shut up.’ ”

Trouble’s travels ended on April 18 when Lampi arrived at work and saw the aptly named bear once again sniffing around Jake’s cage.

Lampi called the Alaska Fish and Game Department for backup and then grabbed his dart gun to sedate the bear. His first shot was deflected by a small branch that swatted the bear’s ear, causing him to crash around the zoo for another hour and a half.

Once he quieted down, a second shot hit him in the right shoulder. Trouble became drowsy right beside Jake’s cage and slumped to the ground. Zookeepers knew it was safe to approach when Jake reached through the bars of his cage and bopped the juvenile on the foot. No movement.

Trouble was stashed in the old polar bear exhibit. He was plenty unhappy when he awoke.

“It sounds like somebody hammering,” Seawell said, as the bear pounded on the bars of its cage with his paws.

Trouble won’t be released back to the wild. Given his fondness for garbage, he’d just find his way back somehow. Zookeepers also don’t want to destroy him. A zoo in Duluth, Minn., has come to the rescue. It says it will give Trouble a new home, and maybe a new start.