Part 3 -- Craig Kilborn Forever

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Date Posted: 13:04:21 04/28/05 Thu
Author: Sarah
Subject: Part 3
In reply to: Sarah 's message, "Part 2" on 14:39:24 04/27/05 Wed

Yes, that's right--it fell part way out of the tree and got stuck on a branch. You can't make this stuff up.

Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/apr05/321820.asp
Turns out bear was really there
Rambling bruin, probably same one seen in Cedarburg, brought to earth in suburbs
By ANNYSA JOHNSON
anjohnson@journalsentinel.com
Posted: April 27, 2005
Wauwatosa - Neil Tomkowiak was drinking his early morning java in the break room at Schwaab Stamp & Seal when he looked up to find a 154-pound black bear standing on its hind legs peering through the window.
"I spilled my coffee all over myself," said Tomkowiak, who ran quickly to alert co-workers. "All I was thinking was get your mug and get out of there."
So began a low-speed chase by police, the state Department of Natural Resources and a zoo veterinarian that ended with the tranquilized bear's tumble from a nearby tree into a waiting net.
After a brief checkup by zoo veterinarian Roberta Wallace, the animal, thought to be 18 months to 2 years old, was relocated to a more hospitable habitat - the woods of northern Wisconsin.
Perhaps no one was more relieved to hear of the bear's capture than Jeff White. He's the Slinger High School teacher whose bear sighting in a Cedarburg park Monday drew guffaws from friends and strangers alike.
"It's nice to be vindicated. It was getting kind of lonely up here," said White, who learned of the Tosa bear on the radio Wednesday morning.
Authorities are speculating that the Cedarburg and Wauwatosa bears are one and the same, and that his southward trek began much farther north.
"I've seen these animals travel 300 to 400 miles in a summer, just roaming the countryside looking for a place to call home," said Mike Gappa, a retired bear biologist for the DNR, who now works with the Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association.
Gappa is referring to young male bears - yearlings - who awake from near-hibernation in the spring, only to get the boot from mom and head out on their own.
"They're just bummin'," Gappa said, "looking for a place where there's food available, no competition from other bears and the big territorial boar isn't out to kill them.
"They would much rather live with people, who are really not a threat to them, than some of their own kind," he said.
According to the DNR, there are between 11,000 and 12,000 black bears in Wisconsin, most in the northern third of the state.
But the range is pushing southward, Gappa said, as rising bear populations in some areas outpace efforts to control them through hunting.
"It's a little uncommon to have one this far south," said Jim McNelly, wildlife program supervisor for the DNR's southeast region. "It's the first one I'm aware of, and I've been here 20 years."
Though there's no way of knowing if it's the same animal, there have been several bear sightings over the last 10 days that follow a southeastern path from just north of Kaukauna in Outagamie County to Wauwatosa.
According to Gappa, migrating bears follow a drainage system, such as a river or major creek.
"That doesn't mean they're on the riverbank. They could be walking a half-mile, a mile away from the river," he said.
"It's the terrain, the contours of the land. Somehow nature gives them the ability to recognize these travel lanes and corridors."
Phil Evenson, executive director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, speculated that the bear would have followed a complex of wetlands along Wauwatosa Road and N. 76th St. out of Cedarburg south toward the Little Menomonee River in Milwaukee County.
"It's a straight shot," he said.
It's not clear when the traveler arrived in Wauwatosa, but local police got word around 6:20 a.m. and headed to the parking lot behind Schwaab at 11415 W. Burleigh St.
Officers arrived to find the bear lumbering across the grass between Schwaab and another business, where it took refuge under a semitrailer, said Wauwatosa Capt. Jeff Sutter.
Wallace took aim with a tranquilizer gun but missed on the first shot, sending the bear scrambling 30 feet up a nearby tree.
A partial hit sent him higher. But the third was right on, and within minutes the groggy animal fell several feet, lodging on a branch. A gentle push from the DNR warden sent it tumbling into the net at 8:26 a.m., "and it was taken into custody," Sutter said.
It's not the first time Wauwatosa Police have had to call in zoo personnel for backup. Years back, they had a camel loose on Blue Mound Road, and then there was an ostrich incident.
"But this is the first bear I can think of," said Sutter, who rues such police runs.
"We're glad it worked out this way," he said.
"But animal calls make police look stupid. There's just nothing you can do that doesn't look stupid."

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