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TYLER \u2013 Texas Parks and Wildlife is reporting several bear sightings across East Texas and encouraging people to stay away from its path. According to our news partner KETK, it\u2019s a rare sight for East Texans to spot a bear because the last few bears in the state are predominantly found in the southwest; however, one bear is being spotted all across the piney woods. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe it\u2019s a male, young male, subadult,\u201d Texas Parks and Wildlife District biologist Ruben Gay said. \u201cIt has a signature upside-down Nike swoosh in a way that looks like it is on the right side of his face, so that\u2019s helping us verify it.\u201d Gay said with over 14 reported sightings across East Texas, they\u2019ve been able to track his travels as he moves loosely. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe first started tracking it in the park\u2019s Texas area near Mud Creek, kind of over there near 204 and 110 area in Cherokee County on July 15th,\u201d Gay said. <\/p>\n
Seemingly every corner of East Texas has seen this bear with sightings in Anderson, Cherokee, Rusk and Panola counties. This youngster has potentially found the bare necessities in the piney woods. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis bear has been making his rounds and we\u2019ve been monitoring and tracking it for about a month now,\u201d Gay said. <\/p>\n
Experts at the Caldwell zoo said the bear most likely came from Louisiana, scouting out a potential new home.<\/p>\n
\u201d Especially if it\u2019s a young male, they actually get kicked out about two years old, kicked out from their family group.\u201d Cadwell Zookeeper Kailee Murphy said. \u201cThey have to go find their own territory, and they\u2019ve got to go experience life on their own. Just like all you guys going back to school, and so he is just probably looking for his new territory or looking for some scraps here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he tracks this new trail, the Texas black bear alliance is warning people to leave him be<\/p>\n
\u201cA fed bear or a bear that has human animal conflict is a dead bear, and we just don\u2019t want to see that happen,\u201d Vice Chair of the Texas black bear alliance Kati Krouse said. <\/p>\n
Texas Parks and Wildlife also warns that attempting to target this animal could result in severe penalties and jail time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be severe monetary penalties and jail time, and the fees could exceed 12 grand,\u201d Gay said. \u201cSo be respectful of this animal passing through and just enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n
If a bear is spotted, Texas Parks and Wildlife asks that all sightings be reported by contacting the local department. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TYLER \u2013 Texas Parks and Wildlife is reporting several bear sightings across East Texas and encouraging people to stay away from its path. According to our news partner KETK, it\u2019s a rare sight for East Texans to spot a bear because the last few bears in the state are predominantly found in the southwest; however, … Continue reading Bear sightings in East Texas prompts caution<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1436248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/08\/2025-08-21_031256-201x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1436090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-08 01:47:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/08\/2025-08-21_031256-201x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1436090"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1436713,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436090\/revisions\/1436713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1436248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1436090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1436090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1436090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}