{"id":234507,"date":"2025-10-23T07:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T07:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/234507\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T07:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T07:45:08","slug":"black-bear-looking-for-a-friend-breaks-into-california-zoo-and-introduces-himself-to-three-resident-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/234507\/","title":{"rendered":"Black bear \u2018looking for a friend\u2019 breaks into California zoo and introduces himself to three resident bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

A young American black bear\u2019s <\/a>journey to find friends led it to break into a California<\/a> zoo to socialize with the residents.<\/p>\n

The bear entered the Sequoia Park Zoo in yet-to-be-determined way on Friday, before making its way to the habitat of the three resident black bears<\/a>, named Tule, Ishung and Kunabulilh, officials wrote in a Facebook post.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe was really, really interested in our three bears, and he introduced himself to all of them through the fence,\u201d Jim Campbell-Spickler, the zoo\u2019s director, told SFGATE <\/a>about their guest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe interaction between them was really sweet, calm and curious. We think he was just looking for a friend, though maybe that\u2019s anthropomorphizing, of course,\u201d Campbell-Spickler added.<\/p>\n

Staff said they noticed the unexpected visitor during a routine inspection.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A wild black bear somehow got into Sequoia Park Zoo last week and greeted the three resident black bears (Sequoia Park Zoo)<\/p>\n

The wild bear, who is estimated to be about a year-and-a-half old and whose sex remains unknown, appeared to fit right in, exploring enrichment toys and interacting with the resident bears,<\/a> while staying away from other animals.<\/p>\n

After wandering through the zoo grounds, the bear was gently encouraged by staff, aided by officers from the Eureka Police Department and a warden from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, to leave.<\/p>\n

It successfully exited through a perimeter gate into the adjacent 67-acre Sequoia Park after about 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

The zoo, home to more than 150 animals, said it regularly experiences visits from wild animals such as skunks, raccoons and foxes, but this marks the first time a bear has made an unscheduled visit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not know how the bear got in,\u201d Campbell-Spickler told SFGATE. \u201cThe main perimeter fence was not breached in any way. Likely, he was just very intent on coming in and visiting our bears, so he could have climbed up into a tree and come over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, he was a very polite visitor,\u201d zoo staff added in the Facebook<\/a> post.<\/p>\n

Staff also took this humorous incident as a reminder to visitors to observe wildlife safely and stay on marked trails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young American black bear\u2019s journey to find friends led it to break into a California zoo to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,47293,485,71326,71347,140760,128,140761,140759,23094,140762,338],"class_list":["post-234507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-black-bears","tag-california","tag-california-department-of-fish-and-wildlife","tag-facebook-post","tag-jim-campbell-spickler","tag-science","tag-sequoia-park","tag-sequoia-park-zoo","tag-wild-animals","tag-wild-bear","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}