A bear perches itself in a tree on Second Ave. at Raymo St. in a residential area on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Albany, N.Y. The bear was eventually tranquilized and removed. (Will Waldron/Times Union)
Will Waldron/Times Union
State and local safety and workers hold a net as they wait for a tranquillized bear to fall from a tree on Second Ave. at Raymo St. in a residential area on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Albany, N.Y. (Will Waldron/Times Union)
Will Waldron/Times Union
State Department of Environmental Conservation officers keep watch as a bear, upper left, perches itself in a tree on Second Ave. at Raymo St. in a residential area on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Albany, N.Y. The bear was eventually tranquilized and removed. (Will Waldron/Times Union)
Will Waldron/Times Union
A bear perches itself in a tree on Second Ave. at Raymo St. in a residential area on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Albany, N.Y. The bear was eventually tranquilized and removed. (Will Waldron/Times Union)
Will Waldron/Times Union
A bear perches itself in a tree on Second Ave. at Raymo St. in a residential area on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Albany, N.Y. The bear was eventually tranquilized and removed. (Will Waldron/Times Union)
Will Waldron/Times Union
A bear lays in a net on Second Avenue in Albany on Tuesday after being subdued with a tranquilizer as a state conservation officer walks by.
H.R. Schneider/Times Union
DEC officials carry a sedated bear that had fallen from a tree into a net and load it onto a truck Tuesday morning in Albany.
H.R. Schneider/Times Union
A state DEC officer looks up at a bear sitting in a tree at Second Avenue and Raymo Street on Tuesday in Albany.
Will Waldron/Times Union
A bear looks down at Albany city police officers and state conservation officers from a tree at Second Avenue and Raymo Street on Tuesday in Albany.
Will Waldron/Times Union
A bear is seen in a tree at Second Avenue and Raymo Street on Tuesday in Albany.
H. R. Schneider/Times Union
A bear looks down from a tree above an Albany city police vehicle at Second Avenue and Raymo Street on Tuesday in Albany.
Kyra Santicola/Times Union
State conservation officers and Albany city police look up at a bear in a tree at Second Avenue and Raymo Street on Tuesday in Albany.
H. R. Schneider/Times Union
A bear is spotted in a tree at Second Avenue and Raymo Street on Tuesday in Albany.
H. R. Schneider/Times Union
A bear looks down from a tree at responding officers from the Albany Police Department and the state Department of Environmental Conservation at Second Avenue and Raymo Street on Tuesday in Albany.
Kyra Santicola/Times Union
A bear looks down from a tree at Second Avenue and Raymo Street on Tuesday in Albany.
Kyra Santicola/Times Union
A bear looks down from a tree at Second Avenue and Raymo Street on Tuesday in Albany.
Kyra Santicola/Times Union
A bear looks down from a tree at Second Avenue and Raymo Street on Tuesday in Albany.
Kyra Santicola/Times Union
Second Avenue in Albany, between Hoffman and Frisbie avenues, is closed to traffic Tuesday due to a bear spotted in a tree, according to city police.
Albany Police Department
ALBANY — For one morning, King Kong had nothing on a young black bear in a tree on Second Avenue.
The bear — first spotted in the tree at the corner of Second Avenue and Raymo Street around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday — was struck by a tranquilizer dart fired by a responding officer around 11:40 a.m. For a few minutes, the bear didn’t seem affected. Instead, it climbed higher. A crowd watching below cheered. Then, finally, the bear fell — onto another branch.
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“It was holding on like it was doing pull-ups,” Sarina Heffernan, 33, of Albany, said.
The bear hung on for a little under a minute before falling into a net spread by officers below.
Officers spread a net in preparation to catch a bear in a tree in Albany on Tuesday. They fired a tranquilizer dart at the bear around 11:40 a.m. About 20 people gathered to watch the capture unfold.
H.R. Schneider/Times Union
A bear hangs from a branch after being shot with a tranquilizer dart in Albany on Tuesday. The bear was spotted earlier in the morning, lounging in the tree on Second Avenue.
H.R. Schneider/Times Union
Heffernan said her son spotted the bear as she was getting ready for work as a bus monitor that morning. She didn’t believe him at first. Heffernan said she’s never seen a bear before outside of the zoo. But there it was, sticking its long tongue out as it snacked on leaves. A friend was already calling 911.
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Albany police spokeswoman Officer Megan Craft confirmed a passerby called 911 after seeing the bear around 6:30 a.m. A portion of Second Avenue, between Hoffman and Frisbie avenues, was closed after Albany city police, animal control and environmental conservation officers with the state Department of Environmental Conservation responded. Garden Street at Raymo Street was also closed.
Police asked the public to avoid the area while officers worked on getting the bear out of the tree.
But that didn’t keep the crowd of curious onlookers away. About 20 people had gathered by 11 a.m. on Second Avenue near the scene. City police and conservation officers were gathered below.
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“Keep your head up! Don’t let them intimidate you, baby!” one passerby shouted to the bear.
One person remarked that a horn was honked at one point.
“That doesn’t work for anyone in Albany.”
After the bear was brought down from the tree (having fallen uninjured onto a mat, DEC confirmed), an officer told the crowd they were waiting for it to be fully unconscious. Around 12:30 p.m., responders from DEC’s wildlife division loaded the sedated bear onto a truck. Jeremy Hurst, a DEC wildlife biologist, told reporters at the scene the bear would be released into the Catskills. The drugs used in the tranquilizer take three to four hours to wear off, he said.
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“Best case scenario we let the bear leave on its own,” he said. “Ultimately, the decision was made to immobilize the bear.”
Hurst said the bear is likely a year-old male, around 130 pounds and had left the den it was born in to look for food from possibly as close as Bethlehem.
“It’s a young bear trying to find where it’s gonna land,” he said. “And just like young teenagers, sometimes they make a wrong turn and end up where they don’t belong.”
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He noted that there are between 6,000 and 8,000 bears throughout New York, mostly living in the Adirondacks and Catskills.
“It’s not uncommon that we have bears come up here into suburban places,” he said, noting DEC will receive reports of a bear sighting in Albany once every two or three years.
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In May 2022, a 2-year-old, 150-pound black bear was tranquilized and dropped out of a tree in Washington Park. Ursine encounters have been regularly reported in the Hudson Valley and Capital Region over the last few years.
“We have bears in urban areas every year around the state, so this experience for our biologists, as stressful as it is, is not terribly unique,” Hurst said. “It’s certainly unique for all the local residents here.”