A bear was discovered Monday morning entangled in power pole lines on the outskirts of Willcox, a community in southern Arizona, according to Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative, a utility company.
According to company lineman Werner Neubauer, the electricity was promptly turned off to save the animal from being electrocuted.
Lineman Warner Neubauer and Apprentice Lineman Gallego of Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Co-op were sent out to see if they could help the animal.
“When we arrived, we discovered that the bear was in an extremely precarious condition and may electrocute itself at any moment. The cables close to the bear’s head had 7200 volts of activated power. He would have died right away if he had touched one of those.
They immediately cut the power to the lines and then returned to the bear on the pole. The utility workers approached the bear from the basket of their boom truck.
The bear was observing us from the top of the pole while we were putting up our bucket truck, but when I approached him in the bucket, he covered his eyes with his front leg as if he were trying to hide. He glanced up at me when I started chatting to him while I was about 6 feet away from him.
Neubauer tried to talk to the bear from around 6 feet away while also trying to lure him down. That didn’t sit well with the bear, who continued grasping and chewing the stick.
The bear eventually moved into a better position thanks to Neubauer, “and then he climbed down the pole on his own and ran away,” the author said.
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