Black bear cub spotted in District’s Brookland neighborhood

A juvenile black bear cub has been spotted roaming around D.C.’s Brookland neighborhood.

A poster on X uploaded a photo of the bear in a yard near 14th Avenue and Newton Street NE around 7 a.m. Wednesday. Another poster caught closer footage of the bear on some steps near a white gate.

Local officials and the Humane Rescue Alliance are monitoring the bear’s whereabouts. 

“My office is keeping tabs on the black bear sighted in Brookland. Neighbors have affectionately named it ‘Otis,’ and [Humane Rescue] is working to safely locate and remove the bear from the community,” Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker posted on X.  Mr. Parker said the Metropolitan Police Department was on standby if needed. 

The bear is expected to leave the area of its own volition, HRA told WJLA-TV.

The bear is not, experts say, the same one that visited Brookland last June. That bear was named Franklin after he climbed a tree near D.C.’s Franklin Street NE, and was ear-tagged following the encounter. The bear seen Wednesday is untagged.

“You know that bear from last year, it had a whole year to grow. So I would expect it to be a larger bear at this point in time. And this bear looks like a young, yearling male to me,” Jonathan Trudeau with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Heritage Service told WTTG-TV.

Black bears have also been spotted in neighboring Montgomery County, Maryland. The bears are young males away from their mothers for the first time, trekking out in search of their own territory.

“So these are 18-month-old bears, they are normally the male teenage bears that are coming down. They got booted out by mom, and they are coming down looking for habitat, looking for a place to set up shop,” Montgomery County Parks Department Natural Resources Specialist Noelia Schmidt told WJLA-TV.