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Officials use sweet treat to lure bear into live trap
Staff report
BOARDMAN
Photo
This black bear was spotted for the second day wandering in Boardman Township. On Thursday the bear was seen on Glenwood Avenue, Ewing Road and Wildwood Street.
In the end, it was a gooey sweet treat that lured Boardman’s meandering bear into a trap.
The black bear had been making its way through the township since Wednesday and wound up about 3 p.m. Thursday at the home of Bill and Lynette Host, 7005 Glenwood Ave.
Three hours later, it had been lured into a large live trap.
“They lured him in there with strawberry shortcake. I think it was Giant Eagle’s,” said Lynette Host.
Tom Frank, Mahoning County’s state wildlife officer, said the bear will be relocated to a rural area in either Trumbull or Ashtabula County.
“Boardman was just not ready for a bear,” Frank said.
Lynette Host had returned from a grocery run about 2:30 p.m. to find “a lot of confusion” and neighborhood kids telling her: “There’s a bear in your backyard.”
State wildlife officers had followed the bear and had hoped to get the animal to move west toward the Mill Creek area, but too many people spooked the animal.
“They were very curious. You couldn’t believe how many people there were,” Lynette Host said.
That led the bear to venture up the street two or three houses, then across the Hosts’ front yard — running right past them — and it “opened the gate himself and went right in the backyard.”
A nap was then in order, as the bear slept there until about 3:30 p.m.
Rangers from the Akron area arrived with a big live trap and placed it between two houses, using the sweet treat as a lure. In went the bear, about 6 p.m., and away went the trap, the cargo and its keepers.
Township police Sgt. Brian Habeger said the Ohio Department of Natural Resources had asked Boardman police to leave the bear alone.
Habeger said the bear also was spotted Thursday afternoon on Glenwood Avenue, Ewing Road and Wildwood Drive and seemed “to be heading west,” he said.
Boardman resident Anthony DiViechic said he was at his brother’s Ewing Road home about 11 a.m. when the bear wandered into the backyard.
“It wandered into the yard, and I stood up and told my wife to get in the garage,” he said.
DiViechic said he wanted to take a closer look and was able to get about 12 feet from the animal.
“It just walked away from me,” he said. “It was pretty harmless.”