As you already know if you read my blog regularly, bears are pretty common around here. Start talking about the bears that visit your yard to just about anyone and they will respond with how they love “their” bears. People can co-exist with bears.

I had been hearing about a BIG bear that had been causing some trouble (as in overturning large garbage dumpsters in town). In fact, Tim, who is going to do our kitchen and bath remodel, had actually seen him and was pretty angry with him for turning over his dumpster at his showroom.

What we all didn’t know was just how big this bear really was. 726 pounds of black bear. He was trapped on Saturday, tagged, and weighed. That’s one big bear! He managed to get his photo on the front page of the local newspaper.

The bear was found to have an old injury to his nose, part of it having been almost sliced off, so a veterinarian was called in while the bear was tranquilized. That vet happens to be my very own vet, Dr. Louer of Greenwood Lake Animal Hospital. Dr. Louer performed “plastic surgery” on the bear’s nose,  stitching him back up the best he could. The following photos were taken by a vet tech who attended along with Dr. Louer. (Dr. Louer is in the middle.)

Take a look at his foot!! Looks like Yeti ...

And how about those teeth?

Here they are working on him in the field.

Yesterday I went to pick up some medication for Sailor and I was teasing them about their new patient. They are currently in the process of expanding their clinic and adding on, so I asked if they were going to have a special area for treating bears. They laughed and pulled out a photo album full of photos from the big event. They were great to see. How I would love posing with that bear! Ahem, as long as he was still tranquilized, that is!

They released him back into the same area. Let’s hope he doesn’t continue to get into more trouble! What a beauty!