'Cinnamon' black bear who stopped by for dinner finally trapped in Salem city limits

A black bear that sniffed the appealing aroma of hot dogs and s'mores in a Salem family's backyard has finally been trapped and relocated safely.

Salem Police Chief Keith Steelman said the bear showed up Monday evening near the backyard of a Salem family that was having a cookout.

The bear was not aggressive and appeared to be just wanting a treat.

"It's the first one inside the city that we know of," Steelman said Wednesday morning.  "This started late Monday evening when the family was in their yard grilling hot dogs and s'mores. They heard a noise and thought it was a dog or something. Then one of them said, 'There's a bear'!"

Startled by the human voices, the bear shimmied up a tree. The police department contacted the Missouri Department of Conservation, which sent two agents and a bear trap baited with food.

Steelman said the bear climbed down the tree several times, while police kept curious onlookers at a distance.  

"At one point he was in the tree and kind of crossed his paws and laid his head in the crook of the tree," Steelman said. "I said, 'Guys, I think he just went to sleep.'"

The bear hung out in the tree or near it until 1:15 a.m. Wednesday, when the food in the trap proved too tempting.

"He went into the trap to get his breakfast this morning," Steelman said. "That's when they caught him."

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Josh Wisdom, MDC wildlife damage biologist, said he used doughnuts and bacon inside the trap to speed up the bear's capture. Typically, MDC uses natural foods when it traps bears for research.

Wisdom said the bear was a healthy 2-year-old with a reddish-brown coat, often called a cinnamon bear, though it is still a black bear.

It was taken to U.S. Forest Service land east of Salem and released.

Wisdom said a bear like this one typically would have fled the area when darkness set in. But people and traffic movement in town kept the bear from leaving.

"With this one, he just couldn't feel safe enough to get away," Wisdom said. 

Wisdom said he trapped the bear to prevent it from being hit by cars if it tried to escape, or have a dangerous interaction with people in town. He said he did not consider it a problem bear.