# Huge bear hibernates under a porch in PA



## Due51 (Oct 26, 2005)

A huge black bear in Monroe County is now looking for a new place to hibernate. Game commission officials came to the rescue after it was found sleeping under a porch near Long Pond.

Crews arrived early Wednesday morning outside the Sainvil family home. Beneath the family's front porch was a 600-pound black bear that had been spotted in the neighborhood several days earlier.

"He's an exceptionally large bear and we just finished our bear season last week so he was pretty safe where he was," said Tim Conway of the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

"These darts have a charge in them. When the dart hits the bear, the charge goes off. Once the dart stops it injects the drug right into the bear," explained a different game commission official.

A shooter crawled under the porch near the driveway and fired the dart. Minutes later the tranquilized bear was dragged from his hiding place.

Game commission officials wasted no time in identifying him. Amazingly this same bear, now 15 years old, was captured before, back in 1992 when he was just past his first birthday.

"Now here it is 2005 and we capture him again. We know it's the same bear because he has a tattoo in his lip," Conway said.

And now he has a new place to hibernate. Crews hauled the animal to some nearby state game lands and set him free.

It was a relief to Barbara Sainvil, who lives in the home with her husband and four children.

"Hibernating under my porch? I don't have anything against it, but not under my porch!" she said.

Game commission officials said black bears, the largest predators in North America, are rarely a threat to people.


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