NDOW game warden Brian Eller asks a vehicle to vacate the area while investigating a bear sighting in Hawthorne last week. (Stephen Tool photo)
Some Hawthorne residents received a surprise last week: A bear decided to pay a visit to 210 Pine St. and lodge in a tree for a happy, multi-hour rest. Officers from Mineral County Sheriff’s Dept. and Brian Eller, a Nevada Dept. of Wildlife game warden out of Yerington, arrived on the scene to monitor the animal.
“We’re kind of spread few and far between, so they called me out here,” Eller said.
The bear apparently wandered in from the mountains and behind the homes on Pine Street when dogs chased it up in the tree. It roosted there for the better part of eight hours while showing little interest in its surroundings
As police attempted to block off the street, a good number of bystanders and drive- by vehicles made their presence known to public officials and the bear, official personnel had their own plan.
“The plan is to see if we can just get it to come out and get it away from the house. If we can get it back behind these houses, we can maybe push it back into the hills. If it decides to hang out here, I’ll have to try and dart it.” Eller said.
Eller noted the bear had a tag in its ear. “The bear was darted last year in Gardnerville. The bear was a problem there and they too it and relocated it to East Walker—by the nine-mile ranch,” Eller noted.
Eller said if he had to dart the bear, he’d wait until the bear came out of the tree rather than risking it falling out of the tree.
“I do have a live trap on its way down,” Eller said. “If we get it before dark, we can set it up and hopefully get it that way. I don’t want to spend the night, I have to be in Reno tomorrow,” Eller said.
At least in one respect, bears are similar to children: “Depending on what we’ve got, we’ll bait the trap with marshmallows, donuts, apple–they really like liquid smoke. One bear I trapped in Mason Valley, I used marshmallows and pancake syrup,” Eller explained.
According to police reports, Eller did just that several hours later. He baited a trap with marshmallows and peanut butter. The bear found it irresistible and Eller trapped his prize. The location of the bear is unknown at press time.
