POCATELLO — Roscoe and Cooper, the two captive black bears who call Zoo Idaho in Pocatello home, had an unexpected visitor on Tuesday.

It wasn’t Smokey or Yogi. The visitor was a wild black bear that had somehow snuck into the zoo early Tuesday morning and caused quite a bit of confusion for zoo staff.

“Our vet came in to do his normal rounds and work with our staff and at seven o’clock I got a call saying, ‘Hey I think we have a black bear out,'” said Zoo Idaho Superintendent Peter Pruett. “I got here at 10 after seven and checked on the grizzly bears who were safely secured. I came down and checked on our black bears and they were safe, too. But just down the pathway this little guy was just standing there in front of the cougar exhibit.”

The “little guy” Pruett refers to was what Fish and Game officials estimate was a 2- or 3-year-old male black bear. Aside from a black bear sighting near the Satterfield Drive area in northeastern Pocatello last month, Jennifer Jackson of the Idaho Fish and Game Department said the black bear that entered the zoo was the first one known to have entered city limits.

But how the bear entered the facility remains a mystery.

“Not one bit,” Pruett said when asked if he had any ideas how the bear made his way into the zoo. “He is a young bear and for all we know he is trying to find his territory. Especially with boars, or young male bears, there is a territory that they occupy. When they are young they don't have the strength or size or power to defend their own territory so they are constantly moving. Chances are he was a transient bear moving through the area.”

Jackson said there is no way to confirm whether the breaking and entering black bear was the same as the bear spotted in the Satterfield area of Pocatello. However, one Fish and Game official said the two looked awfully similar.

Pruett said the black bear was visibly scared when he first observed the bear near the cougar exhibit and quickly scaled a tall ponderosa pine tree. The bear climbed about 70 feet into the tree and remained there for several hours.

Zoo Idaho was closed until 3:15 p.m. Tuesday to allow Fish and Game officials to humanely capture the bear.

Shortly after 2 p.m., Jackson said the black bear did climb down the tree, remaining about 5-10 feet off the ground. Fish and Game officials shot the bear with an air gun that fires tranquilizer darts, loaded him into a culvert trap and hauled him to a unspecified remote location outside of city limits and away from inhabited areas.

Prior to transporting the bear, Jackson said Fish and Game officials put a collar and ear tag on it.

“Those things are really important because if he shows back up again we will know it’s the same bear,” Jackson said.

Zoo Idaho is one of the only native wildlife zoos in North America, Jackson added.

“And it was really today because we actually had a native wild bear try to join in on the fun here,” she said.

Some may call it happenstance, but Pruett said it’s sheer luck that the bear ended up making his way into the zoo.

“You can play the lottery your entire life and never win,” Pruett said. “It is extremely lucky that he ended up in the zoo because it was the safest spot for him to be. He was contained and we were able to isolate him in an area and for the most part keep people out from direct contact. If he was out in Ross Park, then it's a totally different ball game.”