A wandering black bear was tranquilized, rescued and relocated today after being treed at a south Augusta scouting camp.

"It was seen around town several times during the night in the Highway 56 and Highway 25 areas and the sheriff's office was keeping track of it," said wildlife biologist Vic VanSant of the Georgia Wildlife Resources Division.

The brown bear, a male weighing between 150 and 200 pounds, eventually found its way to a camp on 4H Club Road near Mike Padgett Highway, where it was frightened by stray dogs and climbed high into the boughs of a mature pine, Mr. VanSant said.

Officers from the division's Thomson office brought a tranquilizer gun and successfully darted the bear, which was about 70 feet up the tree.

"We had hoped it would come down on its own and continue moving, but since there was a group of kids that was going to be at the camp for a barbecue that night, we thought we'd go ahead and try to remove the bear," he said.

The biologists were worried the tranquilized bear would fall from the top of the tree and injure itself.

"Instead, he didn't come down at all," Mr. VanSant said. "He passed out hung over a big tree limb."

One of the division's law enforcement officers, Ben Payne, called the Richmond County Fire Department, which sent firefighters and a truck with an extendable ladder. Once officers reached the bear, it was given an additional sedative and brought down to the ground, where it was loaded into a cage.

Mr. VanSant and other officers then drove the bear to a wilderness area in north Georgia to be released.

Black bears typically stay in their home habitat in upstate regions, he said, but juvenile males who are reaching reproductive maturity often wander long distances in search of their own territory during late spring and early summer. The Augusta area is outside of their typical range. Generally, bears relocated to their home regions tend to stay there, he said.

"We've had good luck with bears that are returned to the wilderness areas in the mountains, in that we don't usually have to catch and move them again."

Reach Rob Pavey at 706-868-1222 ext. 119 or rob.pavey@augustachronicle.com