Black bear spotted in Pittsburgh's Mt. Washington, Overbrook neighborhoods

A black bear was spotted several times early Wednesday in Pittsburgh, authorities said.

Officers in Zone 3, which covers a swath of Pittsburgh’s southern neighborhoods, responded to several sightings of a bear early Wednesday morning, said spokeswoman Cara Cruz.

Cruz said officers spotted a bear on Groveland Street in Overbrook and in Mt. Washington, first on Wyoming Street near Shiloh Street and again near Sweetbriar and Lupton.

Anyone who spots a bear is advised to leave it alone, don’t feed it and call 911. Cruz said Animal Care and Control has been in touch with the state Game Commission.

Karen Howells, of the South Side Slopes, woke up to find that her Ring doorbell captured footage of the bear around 3 a.m. She said she heard noises in the middle of the night and thought someone was trying to break in.

“Never expected to see a bear,” she said.

On Sunday, a South Fayette resident reported they’d picked up a bear on their security camera about 2 a.m., according to Tribune-Review news partner WPXI-TV.

The bear walked through the yard and to a neighbor’s house, where it got into some trash, the resident told the TV station.

A black bear took up temporary residence in Pittsburgh’s Highland Park last year, hanging out under a tree and then napping on Heberton Street. That bear was ultimately tranquilized and loaded into a bear trap to be released in an uninhabited area outside of Allegheny County.

That sighting, on June 16, was the same day two black bears were spotted in Ross. Those sightings happened near the Radcliff plan on Thompson Run Road and McKnight Village Park.

Sightings of black bears were up last year because of cooler-than-usual late spring temperatures, according to the Game Commission. The cooler temperatures, combined with the pandemic keeping people at home, brought more bears out during the daytime.

Last year also saw bear sightings in Arnold, Tarentum, Ohio Township, Richland and Cranberry.