TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) 鈥 A 350-pound black bear that perched for hours in a tree, causing a Mother's Day spectacle last spring in northern Michigan, was killed by a hunter, authorities said.
鈥淚t makes me sad, because I was just envisioning it living peacefully in the forest somewhere, thriving as a bear does,鈥 said Ashlea Walter, who was among dozens of people who watched in May as authorities responded to a bear in a Traverse City neighborhood.
The bear was killed four months later in September in Emmet County, the
鈥淲e have a few designated relocation sites and then let it go, and it鈥檚 on its own to be a bear,鈥 said Stephen Griffith, a state wildlife biologist. 鈥淎nd yes, during the bear season, obviously some of them fall prey of a hunter.鈥
The bear's arrival on Mother's Day caused a stir. Spectators sitting on front lawns and in chairs held phones up to take pictures and video of the bear in a tree.
The bear fell asleep for hours after being shot with tranquilizer darts, then fell out of the tree and landed on a mattress 鈥 a soft landing that was supplied by Walter.
The bear was transferred on a tarp and released miles away in the wild.
