The bear that made its way to the main campus May 26 wasn鈥檛 the first of its kind in recent memory to come calling. And while last month鈥檚 incident ended tragically, a previous incident had a positive outcome.
In 2019, a young black bear was spotted in Parking Lot 5 between the arboretum鈥檚 Redwood Grove and Old Davis Road. The bear later climbed a tree on Solano Field, near the Environmental Horticulture building, and was captured by California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials, .
Fish and Wildlife attached a tracking collar to the bear and released it in Colusa County. The collar fell off a couple months later and was eventually recovered by Fish and Wildlife, according to information officer Ken Paglia.
And even though the bear hasn鈥檛 been spotted since 2019, Paglia said it鈥檚 very unlikely last month鈥檚 campus visitor was the same animal.
鈥淭here鈥檚 no evidence that it was the same bear,鈥 he said. 鈥淭he only identifier on the 2019 bear was ear tags, and the most recent bear didn鈥檛 appear to ever have had ear tags.鈥
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Cody Kitaura is a News and Media Relations Specialist in the Office of Strategic Communications, and can be reached by email or at 530-752-1932.