When I arrived at my home on Rock Street in Centralia Thursday, I wasn’t expecting to see Centralia police officers wielding large rifles.
Then again, minutes earlier, I wasn’t expecting my wife to send me a photograph of a large black bear standing in my backyard like an uninvited guest who showed up early to a neighborhood barbecue.
Still, both events had occurred, and now I was balancing the interest in my own property with a desire to capture a photograph of the errant animal for the newspaper.
Alas, the bear was gone by then, leaving only a berry-filled deposit of bear waste and a few paw prints.
The officers weren’t far behind.
In no time, the animal was up a tree a block away and stubbornly resisting the efforts of police and wildlife officials.
The situation isn’t especially rare in Centralia, which is bordered by forestland that creates an almost unbroken chain of tree cover from the Hub City to East Lewis County.
Black bears are the most common of the species, and the only such omnivore to take up residence here in Western Washington.
As officials attempted to tranquilize and capture the animal, I turned to The Chronicle archives to see how often these urban encounters occur in Centralia.
The answer: every few years.
One, encounter, though, made me fear Thursday’s black bear had enjoyed its last pic-a-nic basket, as his forefather Yogi might say.
In October 2004, more than a decade ago, police found themselves in a 3½-hour standoff with a black bear near the Mellen Street exit in Centralia.
Just as it did Thursday, the encounter created a small crowd, lots of chatter and a full-fledged scene.
Everyone had an opinion on how to handle the beast.
One onlooker described the animal as a “good bear” who had been peacefully munching on blackberry bushes moments before being interrupted by prying Homo sapiens.
“When they come into the city, they’ll come back,” another onlooker proclaimed, I imagine while sporting the thousand-yard stare of an oldtimer who had seen the past foibles of the species.
Two young children even argued about the matter.
“It’s a bad bear!” one said.
“No, he’s scared of us,” another responded.
In the end, the bear was not long for this world. His short-sighted attempts at filling his bear tummy with yummy morsels of city sustenance would prove fatal.
He was shot with tranquilizer darts and pelted with non-lethal bean bags before falling to the ground. When he summoned the intestinal and instinctual fortitude to stand, he was promptly shot by an officer who feared the animal would charge nearby onlookers.
As I read all of this, Thursday’s bear remained frustratingly perched high above my neighborhood. Visuals Editor Pete Caster, keeping journalistic vigil at the scene, informed me an early attempt with tranquilizers had only pushed the four-legged invader further up the tree, where it grunted and panted like the cornered beast that it was.
“Woe unto that bear,” I thought, recalling the steps that came next in 2004.
Caster left the scene before the bear came down, having stood under the tree with the responders for almost four hours.
The 2004 incident was followed by explanation from authorities for why young Pooh had met the business end of a shotgun.
“It’s sad it’s necessary to euthanize him, but he’s a young bear and he’s developed some very bad, dangerous habits,” an official said at the time.
He’d been seen throughout the city in the months before.
Relocation would simply mean he’d find other humans with food to provide unnatural sustenance, they reasoned, putting him in dangerous proximity to people.
Fortunately, for Thursday’s bear, at least, thinking appears to have changed.
The animal eventually tumbled out of the tree and onto a tarp.
As you read this, he’s no doubt lumbering around the Gifford Pinchot National Forest — where he was released — with the foggy mind of a bear rethinking its life after a startling encounter with humans.
Now, all that’s left is a cautionary tale — and a pile of berry-filled bear waste in my backyard.
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Eric Schwartz is editor of The Chronicle.
