Staff Report
A large black bear was spotted wandering around Mission Drive in Solvang on the evening of Saturday, April 26.
The animal was reported at about 9:30 p.m. near Fredrick’s Court on the 1600 block of Mission Drive, according to Raquel Zick, public information officer for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.
There was a shelter-in-place issued to Solvang residents that was lifted around 11:20 p.m., and according to scanner traffic the bear was to be tranquilized and released back into the forest.
State Fish and Wildlife along with Sheriff’s deputies confirmed they safely got the bear, nicknamed Brownie, back to an undisclosed location in the Los Padres National Forest.
