By Steve Huffman
Salisbury Post
THOMASVILLE ó Boo-Boo the Bear has gone to that big berry patch in the sky.
The black bear, which was in recent weeks tracked through Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Rowan and most of Davidson counties, was felled Friday afternoon by a rifle shot from a Thomasville Police officer.
“We did everything we could, trust me, we did,” said Sgt. Donnie Rowe of the Thomasville Police Department.
He said the bear left officers little choice but to shoot it after wandering into a backyard where children were playing next door. Rowe said the department doesn’t have a tranquilizer gun.
“Think about it,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of occasions to deal with a bear.”
The bear was spotted in the parking lot of a Ruby Tuesday’s restaurant on Randolph Street early Friday afternoon.
Officers arrived and saw it, Rowe said, but Boo-Boo loped into some nearby woods. Rowe said the bear eventually returned to the restaurant’s parking lot, then ambled into a nearby residential area where plenty of children were out and about.
Rowe said there was concern about the bear harming a child or adult. He was shot about 4 p.m.
“We had to take the bear down, unfortunately,” Rowe said.
He said he hated it as much as anyone, and had become personally wrapped up in the story of the bear’s travels. Rowe said the bear was spotted crossing Interstate 85 near Exit 102 in Davidson County earlier Friday. The site is close to East Davidson High School.
“Ultimately, you’ve got to put the safety of your residents first,” Rowe said.
Sgt. Tony Sharum of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission said he was told that the bear weighed about 150 pounds and was between 11/2 and 3 years old.
“That’s about the size we expected,” Sharum said.
He said the bear was a male and had likely been booted from his mother’s side when she became pregnant with more cubs.
“The mother will push them out,” Sharum said. “The young males have to establish their own territory.”
Sharum said the stance of wildlife officers from the get-go had been to ask residents to leave the bear alone in hopes that it would eventually return to the wild. The bear was spotted a couple of weeks ago in Huntersville in Mecklenburg County.
It had crossed Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties before arriving in Salisbury last Sunday, spotted several times near N.C. 150 close to the State Employees Credit Union.
On Monday night, the bear was spotted in the vicinity of the Hefner VA Medical Center. Several residents reported a Close Encounter of the Bear Kind as they narrowly missed Boo-Boo as he darted across busy Jake Alexander Boulevard.
Sharum noted that the bear crossed two major rivers ó the Catawba and the Yadkin ó during the course of his recent travels.
It’s just a shame, Sharum said, that the creature didn’t establish a residence in one of the wilderness areas in which he surely crossed. Ultimately, Boo-Boo may not have been smarter than the average bear.
“Unfortunately, for whatever reason, he followed the I-85 corridor,” Sharum said. “I think he was just wandering.”
He said wildlife officers still believe they followed the right course of action in encouraging people to leave the bear alone and hope that it eventually found its way to a wilderness area. Sharum noted that the nearby Uwharrie National Forest would have been the perfect abode for a black bear.
“There are wild animals throughout our state,” Sharum said. “We live on the fringe of their general range.”
Contact Steve Huffman at 704-797-4222 or shuffman@salisburypost.com.