10:09 AM

This Week Was Already A (Smoky) Bear. Then A Bear Showed Up In Brookland

Martin Austermuhle



A black bear that was spotted in Maryland on Thursday made its way into Northeast D.C. on Friday morning.

Wahi Chisolm

On a week when heavy smoke from Canadian wildfires forced many people to take precautions they’re not used to, an animal so associated with wildfire prevention they’re known as Smokey made a visit of its own — forcing people to take precautions they’re not really used to. ... Talk about a metaphor, huh?

Residents in Brookland were awakened Friday morning with news of a black bear wandering around the neighborhood, only a day after a similar bear was spotted just across the Maryland border in Hyattsville. A video posted on a Brookland neighborhood Facebook group showed the bear sauntering across a street in the leafy and residential area, only to be found an hour later some 40 feet up in a tree just off of Rhode Island Avenue NE.

Neighbors and police officers alike gathered at a distance to gawk at the bear, dubbed Smokey by some, Franklin by others after the street many of the closest residents lived on, or, more simply, the Brookland Bear.

“Did you see the movie ‘Cocaine Bear’?” one police officer asked another. “Funniest movie ever.” (Cocaine makes people energetic and euphoric; the Brookland Bear was merely napping.) ... “He’s just trying to get to Uproar for Pride. Leave him alone,” noted one person on Twitter. (The city’s annual pride celebrations are this weekend.)

{snip}