A bear fell asleep inside a Colorado Springs pizza shop on Monday after it wandered around town, ignoring a nearby school along the way.
Blanca Caro, the Colorado Springs police school resource officer at Palmer High School, noted the bear's presence almost caused the school to go on lockdown, reported USA Today. She had been notified by an unidentified source that a bear was seen near the school, but concluded upon further investigation that the animal was not a threat to students and had left the vicinity.
She continued to search for the wandering creature until an employee at Louie's Pizza notified her about a bear in the restaurant.
"I started heading west on Boulder and that's when I got flagged down by an employee at Louie's Pizza," Caro said.
The employee surmised that the bear must have smelled the pizza, gotten hungry and come inside. The bear entered through an open door, walked past the restrooms and found its way into the pizza prep room, reported The Gazette. Upon reaching the source of the smell, the bear ate some cini-bread icing and curled up on a storage rack.
One of the employees, Sawyer Janney, reported being more startled by a co-worker's reaction than by the bear itself.
"He just yells 'bear' and runs outside," Janney said.
By the time Parks & Wildlife showed up, the bear cub was already asleep on the second shelf of the storage rack, according to NBC's West Palm Beach affiliate WPTV.
"He (the Parks & Wildlife officer) went back to that corner, woke her up and then tranquilized her," Caro said.
1st spotted by Palmer High she made her way for pizza before being wrangled by DOW. pic.twitter.com/WnZLpwqCBB
— Springs Police (@CSPDPIO) September 14, 2015
The bear was noted to be malnourished and had an open wound on one of its paws. After the wound was treated, the bear was taken to a rehabilitation facility to recover. Workers are now in the process of increasing its weight and healing the wound so it can be reintroduced to the wild.
