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WILKES-BARRE — When Sheri Robzen saw the men with guns walking along the house, she had no idea they were looking for a bear in South Wilkes-Barre in the middle of the afternoon.
It was around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday and Robzen was helping 90-year-old Jeannette Garber straighten up her house on Mallery Place.
“They were just walking along with their rifles,” Robzen said.
She didn’t know the young black bear that had been in the neighborhood since 7 a.m. lay in the backyard out cold after being hit with a tranquilizer dart fired from a state wildlife conservation officer who joined city police in the hunt.
“I was just in the kitchen going through things,” said Garber.
Thinking it might be a drug bust, “(Sheri) made me get into the closet until she found out what was happening,” Garber recalled. “She was trying to keep me safe.”
So were police who told curious residents to get inside as the search narrowed to the area around the Charles Street park.
Officers Cory Dumont and James Conmy directed Wildlife Conservation Officer Gerald Kapral to a fenced-in yard along Stanley Street where they located the bear. Kapral missed with the first shot of tranquilizer dart and hit with another as the bear climbed onto a roof, jumped down and dashed across Stanley Street where it cleared several fences before collapsing in Garber’s backyard.
Mark Perry followed the commotion with others standing on Academy Street.
“… You could see the dart sticking out of the side of him,” Perry said of the bear.
When it was safe, Perry and others walked down the driveway of a house in the 200 block of Academy Street to get a peek through bushes at the bear on the other side of a chain-link fence.
“This is unreal. This is the city of Wilkes-Barre,” said George Golias of Academy Street. His backyard borders Garber’s and he was concerned his pets could have been food for the bruin.
“He could have jumped over here. We have two little dogs,” Golias said.
But Kapral, the wildlife officer, said bears will not prey on dogs.
Kapral wasn’t sure where the bear came from. He said the animal, estimated to be between 1½ to 2½ years old and weighing 170 pounds, would be taken at least 25 to 30 miles away, possibly to state game lands near Red Rock.
State Game Commission employees placed the bear in a secured cage for transport and relocation. If the bear was released any closer, he’ll “be right back,” said Kapral.
