Bear spotted during Atlanta's morning rush hour returned to wild

<p>A young black bear that was spotted along a busy road near Interstate 285 during Thursday's morning rush hour before it slipped into woods behind a shopping mall was tranquilized and taken to the north Georgia mountains.</p><p>The bear, a 75-pound male, was captured in a wooded patch next to the Home Depot Expo Design store at the Perimeter Mall in north Atlanta. Police officers from Dekalb County had kept an eye on the bear until officials from the Department of Natural Resources arrived to shoot it with a tranquilizer dart and haul it away.</p><p>The bear was taken about 100 miles away to the Blue Ridge Wildlife Management Area in Union County, which is near the Tennessee border.</p><p>The Home Depot store's employees on the early shift said they heard helicopters around 6:15 a.m. and went outside to find police cars and fire trucks blocking off the woods.</p><p>"The rumor went through the store pretty quick and we wanted to get a look at the bear," said Allan Hudon, a sales associate who tried to get close to the bear. "But the police wouldn't let us get close."</p><p>Bear sightings in Georgia, even in major metropolitan areas, are not unusual, but there seem to have been a few more than usual this year, said Helen Fosgate of the state Department of Natural Resources. Black bears mate in the late spring and early summer, and young males are often looking to establish their own territory, which could explain the recent increase in sightings.</p><p>On Monday, another young black bear, an 85-pound male, was spotted roaming among trash bins at Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth. The bear was cornered by police and wounded with a shotgun before being captured and returned to the wild in north Georgia.</p><p>"Most people aren't aware that Georgia does have a lot of bears," Fosgate said, adding that Georgia has three distinct black bear populations _ in the northern mountains, in middle Georgia and in the Okefenokee Swamp on the southern end of the state.</p>

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