{"id":673998,"date":"2026-05-30T11:11:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T11:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/673998\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T11:11:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T11:11:16","slug":"bear-sighting-calls-spike-in-alpharetta-wsb-tv-channel-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/673998\/","title":{"rendered":"Bear sighting calls spike in Alpharetta \u2013 WSB-TV Channel 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

NORTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. \u2014 Alpharetta police have been getting reports of bear sightings in the city. They are urging people not to be alarmed, just be aware. <\/p>\n

The neighborhoods of Alpharetta are not where you\u2019d expect to see a bear come wandering through. But police say they have fielded several calls from people saying a bear was on their street.<\/p>\n

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Zach Hudson heard about a bear roaming the neighborhood from his kids, who attend Alpharetta Elementary School. The school sent an email to parents. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey just told us that the school got locked down because of the bear sighting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody captured any photos of the bear.<\/p>\n

Several calls about a bear came from the Lantern Ridge neighborhood in Alpharetta last Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing I can think of, with all the construction, maybe they\u2019re getting pushed out of their natural habitats. It\u2019s definitely surprising,\u201d Hudson said.<\/p>\n

TRENDING STORIES:<\/p>\n

WHAT TO DO IF YOU SEE A BEAR<\/p>\n

Suburban sprawl does boost the chances of bear encounters. Capt. Jakai Braithwaite urges people to secure their trash, bird seed and pet food and to be smart. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd please, by no means, don\u2019t try to get close to the bear. Don\u2019t try to get a selfie with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources says bear sightings do spike in late spring and summer. That\u2019s because young male bears are on the move, pushed out of their home range by older males — and they\u2019re looking for food sources.<\/p>\n

The DNR says do not feed bears. And as long as you\u2019re in a secure spot, you can make noises to scare them away so they don\u2019t get comfortable in residential areas.<\/p>\n

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\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. \u2014 Alpharetta police have been getting reports of bear sightings in the city. They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-673998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}