Pennsylvania Game News - March 2012 - 14

would not have been necessary to trap and relocate them. After all, they were living in the Allegheny National Forest, 500,000 acres of prime habitat. I returned home shortly after midnight. On June 22 I received a call from the Westline Inn concerning a bear, apparently a female with cubs that had become aggressive when an employee took trash from the restaurant to the dumpster. I talked to the owner of the inn and he filled me in on the details. I told him that I would return later in the day to set a trap. Luckily, my neighboring officer Bill Ragosta was on vacation, so I figured his trap was probably sitting idle at a nearby State Game Lands building. I then proceeded to “borrow” Bill’s trap to set it up at the Westline. Upon arrival at the inn I immediately noticed the dumpster’s plastic lids were open, and a trail of trash extended from it to a nearby drainage ditch and beyond. There was a fence around the area of the dumpster but no doors. I had no doubt that bears had been using the dumpster on a continual basis. I talked to the owner and told him what improvements needed to be made to deter bears from using the dumpster. I then set the trap next to the dumpster, baiting it with dough14

nuts and other pastries. Before I left, I talked to a resident who told me I was fighting a losing battle. He stated that there were many bears in the area, including several females with three or four cubs. He went on to say that another female had three cubs and two yearlings with her. I told him that if there were that many bears in the area that someone must be feeding them, and that the problem would continue. Like clockwork, I got a call at 7 a.m. informing me that I had captured a female with cubs nearby. I got dressed, grabbed my tranquilizer rifle and proceeded to Westline. Upon arrival I noted that the trap door was closed and that four cubs were in an aspen tree directly behind the trap. I immediately realized that I had quite a chore ahead of me, as the cubs were too young to be separated from their mom, so I had to either catch them all or turn the female loose. If I turned her loose, my only hope was that she would take the cubs away and not come back, but that was a pipe dream. After talking to the Westline staff they put me in touch with John from the Lafayette Township Volunteer Fire Department. He agreed to come to the Westline Inn with a ladder truck to see if we could capture the cubs. In the meantime I tranquilized the female, and once she was under I opened the door, hoping the cubs would join her. The cubs were too smart for that trick, so when John arrived with the ladder truck all four cubs were still in the tree. It was apparent that the ladder truck wasn’t going to work, so John mentioned that he passed a utility truck with a cherry picker up the road. I immediately proceeded up the road and explained my dilemma and they immediately agreed to help. In preparation for the bucket truck, John cut
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Pennsylvania Game News - March 2012

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