Bear Rescue in California

I received the following email from a staff member and thought I would share this interesting story:

A bear was walking across Rainbow Bridge (Old Hwy 40 at Donner Summit, Truckee) on Saturday when two cars also crossing the bridge scared the bear into jumping over the edge of the bridge. Somehow the bear caught the ledge and was able to pull itself to safety. Authorities decided that nothing could be done to help Saturday night so they returned Sunday morning to find the bear sound asleep on the ledge.
After securing a net under the bridge the bear was tranquilized, fell into the net, lowered, then woke up and walked out of the net.



There is a moral to this story you know; this old bear made a wrong move and found he was hanging by his nails. Somehow he was able to pull himself up onto the ledge where he saw he was in a very bad, impossible situation and what did he do? Yep, he took a nap and sure enough the situation took care of itself while he was asleep. The moral is that when confronted with a bad situation sometimes the best solution is to sleep on it. Think I’ll take a little nap myself.
Associated Press. “Bear Rescued from Sierra Bridge Ledge.”29 September 2007.

4 responses to Bear Rescue in California

  1. Marilyn says:

    I thought this story was awesome when I saw it earlier today, and it still makes me laugh when I get to the moral of it all! But on a more serious note, I think it is wonderful and commendable what these rescuers did to save the bear. What a great ending!

  2. Larry says:

    I had to delete Stephen F.’s comment due to profanity. Below is the remainder of his comment.Pictures are real but story isn’t. Explain why the picture of the bear sleeping is dated Sep 15, 2007 and the picture of the bear hanging by his claws on the day he “supposedly” jumped over the bridges rails because he was scared by two cars is dated Sep 16, 2007? Don’t believe everything you see and read…. Believe nothing….Question everything

  3. Larry says:

    Stephen’s point is a good one; however, I assure you we researched the veracity of the story before posting it. The story was reported by a local newspaper and picked up by the Associated Press and distributed nationwide. I’m guessing the out of date sequence was probably the result of the author wanting to fit images to the narrative.If you look at the picture with the hanging bear that is dated the 16th that animal is hanging BELOW the ledge it is seen on in photo from the 15th. Probably no one got a photo of the bear when it initially went over the side, so they attempted to recreate the scene. It is sloppy reporting but hardly evidence for a global conspiracy.

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