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By Thomas Kika
Weekend Staff Writer
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Residents of a Montana apartment complex received an alarming surprise on Monday when a formidable-looking black bear strolled in the front door and made itself at home.
The incident took place at an apartment complex in Missoula, Montana, near Main Street, and was shared on Twitter by Montana-based sports reporter, Zach Kaplan, who lives in the building. Kaplan began sharing photos and videos of the bear after noticing the animal strolling across the complex's lawn at around 11 a.m. local time.
"Looks like we have a new tenant at my apartment building..." Kaplan tweeted alongside a video of the bear arriving at the complex.
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Later, Kaplan was able to get much closer to the animal, snapping a photo of it sitting around in a hallway near several apartment doors, seemingly relaxed. By that point, the local game warden was on the scene, attempting to get the situation under control.
"Update: he's just hanging here. (On the first floor of my apartment building)," he tweeted. "Game warden is here trying to coax him out of his den."
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Kaplan spoke to Newsweek about the incident involving the bear, sharing information about the animal provided by the local game warden.
"So the bear was a roughly 250-pound black bear," Kaplan wrote to Newsweek. "The first floor of my apartment building doesn't have hallway doors really, so the bear sought refuge in the first-floor hallway. Game wardens responded right away and they tried to lure him out with bait/figure out what to do.
"The bear was just resting and they tried to get him into their trap to no avail. Around 12:45 MT, they came in with tranqs, were able to sedate him, and carried him into the trap and out of our building without further incident."
Kaplan capped off his impromptu coverage of the incident with a video showing two game warden offices wrangling the sedated bear in a large, cylindrical trap. No one in the building or from the local game warden's office was harmed by the animal.
"Update: after tranquilizing him, the game wardens are safely carrying the bear away," the reporter tweeted. "The wardens said they've seen some pretty unique situations, but never one like this."
Based on the information about the bear's size provided by Kaplan to Newsweek, it is likely that it was a male black bear, though this is not confirmed. Adult female black bears typically only grow to a maximum of 175 pounds in weight. Adult males, meanwhile, range between 130 and 600 pounds, putting the bear in Missoula near the low end in size for males.
Montana boasts a black bear population of around 15,000. Most of the population is centered around the western end of the state, according to a distribution produced by Wildlife Informer, which is where Missoula is located
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