Bears Ahote and Luvey play at the Adirondack Wildlife Refuge in 2018 in Wilmington. (Photo provided)

WILMINGTON — Ahote the black bear is back at the Adirondack Wildlife Refuge.

The bear dug out of its enclosure at the Wilmington refuge last Thursday. Ahote went missing for a few days. On Monday afternoon, after giving refuge staff a bit of a runaround, the bear was tranquilized and brought back to its enclosure.

The bear was spotted at the top of Juniper Hill on Sunday, about one mile from the refuge, by one of the refuge’s neighbors and donors, Doug Stoner, according to refuge co-owner Steve Hall.

A few days prior, Stoner had read about the bear escaping and came down to the refuge to see if he could help.

“I was a little whip. I said, ‘Well, find the bear,'” Hall said Wednesday. “Then they call me and they say, ‘The bear is here.’ I said, ‘Doug, that’s not funny.'”

Sure enough, Hall went up to the Stoners’ home on Sunday and Ahote was, in fact, lounging in their front yard.

“There she was, playing with his kayaks, of all things,” Hall said.

Hall said bears can be like dogs. Usually, Ahote will follow refuge staff when they’re able to catch up with the bear, but this time Ahote seemed to be feeling a little playful. The bear would follow refuge staff part of the way back to the enclosure before turning around or running away. The refuge wasn’t able to entice Ahote to follow them all the way back on Sunday.

Bears are creatures of habit, according to Hall. So, on Monday, refuge staff waited for Ahote to show back up. First thing in the morning, Stoner called to let the refuge know the bear was back in his front yard.

Hanna Cromie, the refuge’s general manager, tried to get Ahote to follow her through the woods, but again, Ahote had different ideas. The refuge had been closed for more than three days at that point while its staff searched for Ahote.

“We said, OK, we’re gonna have to wrap this up,” Hall said.

Ahote was tranquilized and brought back to the bear enclosure at the refuge in a pick-up truck, according to Hall.

While Ahote was missing, refuge staff installed an electric fence around the bear enclosure in an effort to stop any future bear breakouts.

This isn’t the first time Ahote has escaped. The last time was in 2019, when the bear escaped with another bear at the refuge, Luvey, and was missing for two weeks.

Luvey was eventually found by Hall near Whiteface Mountain; Ahote was found near the Quaker Hill neighborhood less than a mile away from the refuge and was lured back to her enclosure by two refuge employees. Luvey the bear didn’t escape this time and remains in her enclosure at the refuge.

“They’re not allowed to leave anymore,” Hall said with a laugh.

Ahote, who has black fur and sports a silver ear tag from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, is an ambassador bear, meaning that she stays at the refuge full-time and is used to educate visitors on issues facing wildlife.

Ahote and Luvey are what Hall described as “fake bears” — their parents came from a company that raised bears for use in movies and documentaries. They love vegetation and fruit but won’t eat fish or meat — Hall said 90% of what bears eat isn’t meat, and when bears end up in rehabilitation at the refuge, “there is almost invariably something wrong with the diet.”

Bears around the Adirondacks are being impacted by excessive droughts, according to Hall. Bears eat food in seasons, and when bears come out of hibernation looking for berries and there aren’t any — because of the droughts — bears can begin to starve, Hall said.

“The health of a bear teaches us about the health of the habitat in which they live,” he said.