By Justin Engel
mlive.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. — With the help of some high school pole-vault mats, a curious bear was safely removed from a Mount Pleasant residence’s front-yard tree.
Officials with the Mount Pleasant police and state Department of Natural Resources collaborated to shoot the animal and incapacitate it with a tranquilizer dart in the early afternoon hours of Tuesday, June 2, said David Coffman, the police department’s public information officer.
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The collaborating agencies received an assist from officials from nearby Mount Pleasant High School, which supplied several cushy athletics mats that officers positioned beneath the bear, softening its fall from the tree.
A 67-second video, provided by Jennifer Page and Bryan Chapman, showed officials barricade the area around the tree as they worked to bring the animal safely to the ground.
Coffman said DNR officials plan to relocate the bear at an undisclosed location in the northern region of the state.
Officials first sent out community alerts about the bear shortly after 11 a.m., when the animal was reported in a neighborhood near the intersection of Fancher and Mosher, about 3 miles southwest of the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort.
“We had one of our officers go take a look and, sure enough, there was a bear,” Coffman said. “The DNR got there and did their thing, and we just tried not to spook the bear. It all went great.”
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