Glendale bear returned to forest with 'heck of a hangover'
The Glendale black bear that was tranquilized Tuesday morning by state Fish and Game officials has arrived home, 25 miles into the Angeles National Forest, where authorities say he is "groggy and grumpy but doing well."
Fish and Game spokesman Andrew Hughan confirmed to The Times that the meatball-loving bear with a Twitter handle named "Glen Bearian" was released about 1 p.m. Tuesday deep in his natural habitat.
"He just wandered out, looked around, and took stock of his surroundings," Hughan said. "He's got a heck of a hangover, mostly. The game warden said he's unhappy. We don't know what kind of headache he’s got."
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Hughan said there will be "no further action" regarding the 400-pound bear that has roamed the Glendale area for the last month in search of food.
Tuesday, La Crescenta and Montrose residents gathered as Fish and Game authorities slid the tranquilized 400-pound black bear into a cage to take it back to the mountains.
Lt. Martin Wall of California Fish and Game said it took four tranquilizer darts to finally knock the bear off its feet and put it into a deep slumber. The bear showed up early Tuesday morning and was in the backyard of a home before Fish and Game officials arrived.
Wall said two darts were successfully injected into the bear, and he had to hand-inject a third as it became sleepy.
Afterward, it took more than a half-dozen Fish and Game authorities to carry the bear through a narrow apartment complex gate on a white blanket and set him down on the asphalt behind the bear cage.
Just before his drop-off in the forest, the bear sent out a couple of tweets: "#roadtrip" and "We got to stop at In-N-Out on the way to the woods!"
Hughan said he hopes this will be the last such trip. "We hope he's far enough way that he looks himself in the mirror and says, ‘You know what, I don’t think people-food is for me.'"
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-- Matt Stevens
Photo: A black bear strolls through a front yard of a home on 2300 block of Mayfield Avenue in La Crescenta on Tuesday morning. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
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