Contributed Photo Stockbridge-Munsee biologist Randall Wollenhaup puts a collar on the yearling bear as he is readied for transport in a barrel trap Friday afternoon. Wollenhaup was assisted by Beau Miller, Stockbridge-Munsee tribal warden.
He was fast becoming a local celebrity over the course of his three-day visit, but by Friday he had apparently overstayed his welcome.
The yearling bear that had been alternately raiding bird feeders and getting chased into trees to have his picture taken since his arrival in Shawano on Wednesday morning was forcibly evicted by authorities shortly after 1 p.m. Friday.
“We darted him and sent him on his way,” said Jim Horne, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources conservation warden.
It was initially expected the bear would eventually wander out of town on its own if left alone. Whether it was the ample supply of tasty bird seed or the attention being lavished by amateur paparazzi, the bear kept coming back for more.
“Everybody and their brother was chasing him around town,” Horne said.
Some residents were even posing their children in pictures with the bear.
“Not a good idea,” Horne said.
Late Thursday afternoon, the bear found itself up a tree in the 500 block of West Green Bay Street surrounded by what one caller to the Shawano Police Department described as a crowd of around 30 people.
The caller was concerned about the traffic hazard of children crossing Green Bay Street to get a look at the bear.
The bear finally climbed out of the tree shortly after 7 p.m. and authorities assumed that was the last Shawano would see of him.
Then, on Friday, the calls started coming in again.
On Alpine Drive, a man who poured a slab of concrete went into his home and, when he came out again, saw a line of bear tracks in the cement.
Thursday afternoon, a woman reported the bear was tearing up her bird feeder.
Horne put in a call to the Stockbridge-Munsee biologist, Randall Wollenhaup, and Tribal Warden Beau Miller for their assistance.
The bear was located in a tree at Maple Avenue and Smalley Street where, Horne said, “he was eating grape jelly out of a bird feeder.”
The 80-pound bear was tranquilized, collared, put into a barrel trap for transport, and shipped off to someplace a little less populated.
“The middle of nowhere,” Horne said. “Someplace where he won’t be a pest.”