MONROE — An underweight black bear that used to live off a Redmond family’s bird feeder has been rehabilitated and released back into the wild.
KOMO-TV reports the 1-year-old bear weighed around 45 pounds when it was captured in June, about half the expected weight for a bear of that age.
During rehab, naturalists reintroduced the bear to its native diet of skunk cabbage and berries. Then the bear was driven 60 miles from the PAWS office in Lynnwood into a remote mountainous area along the Cascades.
Before leaving the bear on Thursday, officers fired a non-lethal bean bag shot at the animal and shouted, “Get out of here bear.”
They say that less than eight seconds after the trap opened the bear had vanished into the wild.
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