Bear found downtown near Santa Fe River

NewsNM Swickard - sorry to ruin the fantasy, but wherever they drop the bear will already be a bear and those two will fight to the death according to Rink Summerday, a wildlife expert. Take the bear to a zoo or put it down. From the Santa Fe New Mexican - There must have been moments on Monday when Guadalupe the bear felt she was the star of a reality-television show. And yet all the the roughly 200-pound, adult female black bear did was mostly nap on the rocky riverbed of the Santa Fe River from about 10 a.m. to about 1:30 p.m. — which is when game wardens from the state’s Department of Game and Fish tranquilized her to ensure that neither she nor any nearby humans got hurt. And there were a lot of nearby humans, many of whom lined up to catch a glimpse of the downtown bear as early as 10 a.m. — about 15 minutes after Santa Fe police Lt. Louis Carlos first spotted “Guadalupe,” as some were calling her, in the river near the Santuario de Guadalupe. “Hey, Boo Boo!” one man said, referring to the cartoon-character sidekick of Yogi Bear. Sure enough, not long afterward a nearby woman said, “Yogi’s sleeping.”Just past 1 p.m., Game and Fish area assistant chief Robert Livingston arrived. He dropped a rock in the brush above Guadalupe to check her reflexes. She lifted her head and her ears sprung to attention as she reacted to the rolling rock. “Don’t hurt the bear! Don’t hurt the bear!” one concerned woman pleaded. At 1:20 p.m., Livingston fired a tranquilizer dart into Guadalupe’s hind quarters. Around 1:35 p.m., a collective of officers from Game and Fish, Animal Control, the Santa Fe Police Department and the Santa Fe Fire Department descended the slope, rolled Guadalupe onto a tarp, and carefully carried her up the hill to the approving applause of the audience surrounding the spectacle. Within a few minutes they loaded Guadalupe into the nearby bear cage. The crowd began to thin. Castell said Game and Fish will first check the bear out to make sure she is not ill or hurt. If she is healthy, the officers plan to release her into an undisclosed region of the wilderness. Read more

Bear found downtown near Santa Fe River