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Edition:
September 02, 2010
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NEWS
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Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Bear shot behind Baer building
 | | A Becker County Sheriff’s Auxillary officer, in town to help with crowd control during Frazee’s Turkey Days celebration, helped box in a black bear with a plastic jug over its head behind the Baer building Saturday, July 26. Photo by Barbie Porter |  |  | | After the bear was shot, one homeowner along Lake Street put this display up. Photo submitted by Sheri Smith |
• by Barbie Porter
A black bear with a plastic jug over its head ran through Frazee Saturday, July 26.
The bear was first spotted around 9 p.m. by Frazee resident Sandy Morrow, who lives on West Willow Avenue near Town Lake.
Settling down for the evening, Morrow let her Yorkie poodle out to piddle.
"My dog wouldn't stop barking, so I let him back inside," Morrow recalled. "But he kept barking, so I got out his rope and took him out again. That's when I saw the bear."
The skinny, sickly woodland creature walked across her yard, jumped a hedge and headed toward the Frazee Care Center.
Morrow said the bear was not wet from swimming.
"I didn't know what to think," Morrow said. "I didn't know who to call or if I should call anyone. I'd had a glass and a half of wine and thought everyone would think I was looney."
Morrow decided to confide in her daughter.
"She asked if I had any more to drink after I left her house," Morrow joked.
Not long after Morrow sighted the bear, people on Main Avenue would be struck with the same awe.
The Miss Frazee pageant had just let out when a Frazee police officer and a Becker County Sheriff's Auxiliary officer headed down Lake Street on police issued bicycles. Shortly after they crossed the railroad tracks, Frazee squad cars followed them to Anderson's bus garage.
The bear was boxed in momentarily by the squad cars, but broke free and ran across the tracks as a train whistled in the distance.
Onlookers at All In All pointed at the animal, many questioning if it was a dog with a medical cone around its neck that prevents the animal from biting at stitches.
The bear ran behind the Baer Building and jumped on top of a garbage dumpster.
As a crowd began to form, people snapped photographs of the animal. The flashes angered the bear and police demanded the crowd disperse. Shortly after the public complied a gunshot rang out.
The bear ran a semicircle before collapsing on the ground.
Frazee Police Chief Mike Lorsung reported a bear with its head stuck in a plastic jug had been seen near Lake George north of Park Rapids Monday, July 21.
"Because of the people in town, the fact we don't have tranquilizer guns and because it was sickly, not having food or water for days, the (Minnesota) Department of Natural Resources (DNR) directed us to shoot it," Lorsung recapped.
After the incident the DNR collected the bear's remains.
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Reader Comments
Posted: Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Article comment by:
Lisa
Hello, We were camping near Cass Lake, MN July 16, my brother in law and a person camping next to us both saw a bear with a bucket on it's head on that date. I don't know that they reported it, but I would think it is the same bear.
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