Updated 3:20 p.m.
UC Davis had an unexpected visitor early this morning — a black bear was making its way from Solano Park to the campus arboretum.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife tranquilized the bear and released it unharmed to a wooded area about an hour and a half north of campus.
Department warden Kyle Glau says the bear was likely just looking for snacks.
“Maybe a water source, maybe some food,” he said. “For whatever reason it deemed that that was a good spot. It was probably there in the late hours of last night and unfortunately once everybody started moving around the campus it did its thing and climbed a tree where it feels safe.”
He says bears appear near cities when their own natural habitats disappear or become crowded. This has been the case in California as the population grows and development encroaches on rural areas.
“It’s not abnormal to see the bears infiltrate into I guess what you’d call an urban setting, especially when there’s things like water and food sources and cover in those urban settings,” he said. “And Davis is a good example, they have a lot of trees, a lot of cover, also a lot of people that were probably providing food sources in the form of trash."
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