RENO, Nev. \u2014 Nevada Department of Wildlife officials safely captured a mother bear and her two cubs Sunday after the animals were spotted at Rancho San Rafael Regional Park.<\/p>\n
NDOW said it received its first report of the bears around 3 p.m. As calls and sightings increased, game wardens and a wildlife biologist responded to the park.<\/p>\n
The bears were not acting aggressively or causing problems, but because of the number of people in the area, wildlife officials decided to tranquilize them as a precaution.<\/p>\n
After several hours, crews safely darted all three bears. NDOW identified them as an adult female, estimated to be about 10 years old, and her two female cubs.<\/p>\n
No members of the public, NDOW staff or bears were injured.<\/p>\n
At one point, the bears made their way into the Wilbur D. May Arboretum, where the Dragon Lights festival was underway. NDOW said the festival was not interrupted.<\/p>\n
Wildlife officials collected DNA and other biological samples from the bears and fitted the mother with a GPS collar. The collar will allow biologists to track her movements and learn more about her behavior.<\/p>\n
The mother and her cubs will remain together and are expected to be released back into the wild Monday.<\/p>\n
NDOW said bears are currently in hyperphagia, a period when they consume as many calories as possible before winter. Bears may spend more time in neighborhoods and other developed areas while searching for food.<\/p>\n
Residents are encouraged to secure trash and other potential food sources and give bears plenty of space if they encounter one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RENO, Nev. \u2014 Nevada Department of Wildlife officials safely captured a mother bear and her two cubs Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-872505","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\/872505","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=872505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}