Black bear, believed to be looking for its mom, spotted again in Edina neighborhood

Bears might be something you would expect to see in northern Minnesota, but one was spotted again Wednesday in a Twin Cities backyard.

WCCO spoke with handyman Lee Bottem, who was working at a home in the Concord neighborhood when he and the homeowner thought they saw a dog around 10 a.m.

"The customer says, 'Oh my gosh, somebody's dog's in our yard,' and so I went to look and I just heard her yell, 'Oh my gosh, it's a bear!'" Bottem said. "It's right off of the freeway, so there's a lot of noise coming … the bear was kind of moving away from that, running through the yards."

The city of Edina says it's a black bear that's around 2 to 3 years old. They think it's hugging along the Minnehaha Creek, looking for its mom. They began getting reports of it last weekend.

"The bear really had nowhere to go. It was all fences and treelined. Looked like it was trying to get out of there," Bottem said.

When it comes to bears, Sergeant Anna Eckstein with the Edina Police Department says they're more attracted to birdfeeders and trash cans. 

"The biggest thing we're urging for residents to do is to remove potential food sources," Eckstein said.

When it comes to your pets, just keep them supervised. 

"In Edina nothing like this really ever happens," Bottem said. "WE have a cabin and I've never seen a bear up there and we always joke there's got to be hundreds of bears up there, but the first bear I see is in Edina."

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources also asks anyone who spots a bear to report it on their website.