False Bear Alarm in Beacon Hill? Go East, Young Bear!

At last sighting, our beloved bear had made it all the way to east Shoreline and was seemingly headed for a triumphant escape into the sunrise over the Cascades. But this morning, a jogger in Beacon Hill this morning claimed to have spotted a black bear. Police were dispatched to find the little guy--who reportedly had been snacking on caramel ice cream--but couldn't find anything. Sergeant Kim Chandler of the Department of Fish and Wildlife tells the P-I it was likely a false alarm:

Department of Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Kim Chandler, who headed the search earlier this week for a bear in North Seattle, doubted the credibility of Thursday's sighting.

Wildlife agents had been received a credible report Wednesday night that the bear they'd been tracking previously was seen in Lake Forest Park, north of Lake Washington. Chandler said it's almost impossible that a second bear has entered the city, or that bear sighted earlier in the week had made a U-turn and passed through the city unseen.

"How in the world is a bear going to get from wherever to Beacon Hill without being spotted getting there?" Chandler said. "This is typical of whenever we have one of these incidents. Everybody starts seeing bears, cougars and coyotes every time we have a sighting."

Head east for the mountains, brave bear, and don't look back. We'll meet you in the land of sky blue waters. Beers and berries are on us.