05:56 PM PDT on Tuesday, May 16, 2006

KING5.com

Paul Maisel

A black bear surveys the parking lot at the Avalon Wynhaven apartment complex in the Issaquah Highlands.

ISSAQUAH – Washington State Fish and Wildlife agents announced late Tuesday that they felt they were forced to shoot a bear sighted earlier in the Issaquah Highlands. But the wounded bear got away.

Pictures taken by a KING 5 viewer show a bear wandering dangerously close to an apartment complex in the Issaquah Highlands.

This is now the fourth reported sighting of a bear hanging out in a heavily populated area.

Last week there were three different sightings in Renton.

“It's not something most people are going to want to wake up and see in the morning,” said Dennis McCaskill of Renton Animal Control.

Over the past several years, black bear sightings have occurred in areas all over the Eastside.

Wildlife officials say typically the bears are trying to get from one place to the other and are often hiding out in green spaces, attracted by human food or the sweet scents of springtime in the air.

“Bears are very secretive animal. They don't like a lot of human contact. They seek out places that are dark, quiet with plenty of water,” McCaskill.

This was the second time the bear showed up there and it was about to make a near-fatal mistake.

"As we tried to chase the bear off, it wouldn't leave. In fact it even came at our officers, very aggressively, snarling and snapping its teeth," said Capt. Bill Hebner, Washington Fish & Wildlife.

It was the same bear that earlier ripped through the trash in an unsecured dumpster – the same bear agents couldn't find after the first report. According to wildlife agents, the bear was now face-to-face with them and ready to fight.

"They took a shot and didn't hit the bear, or we did hit the bear and it was slightly injured. We did find small amounts of blood on scene," said Hebner.

But the wounded bear got away and now it is out there where the developments are carved into the once-bear-dominated Issaquah hills.

"This is a community that's butted right up against the foothills of the Cascades, so the bears live on one side of the street and humans live on the other," said Hebner.

The bears will use any greenbelt or path they can find to get around communities. They also use them to make unannounced visits to their human neighbors' trash cans.

Wildlife agents are hoping that the wounded bear learned its lesson and stays away for good.

Wildlife officials are concerned about a wounded bear on the loose but hope, if it isn't seriously wounded, it has a renewed fear of humans.

KING 5's Tonya Mosley and Gary Chittim contributed to this report.