A black bear is on the loose once again in northeast Ohio after squarely defeating police in a day-long game of catch me if you can.

The bear's unlikely journey through suburbia began Monday night when it was first spotted in Bedford, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.

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Police quickly got on the bear's path when it was spotted again Tuesday morning nestled in a tree near an apartment building. Officials blocked residents and, after nearly three hours of waiting for the bear to come down, began spraying it with water from a fire truck house around noon, ABC affiliate WEWS reported.

At about 2:30 p.m. emergency officials took a page out of the Winnie the Pooh playbook and set a trap filled with honey buns to lure the bear, estimated to be about 5-feet tall and nearly 150 pounds, down from the tree.

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The trap worked and the bear came down from the tree but it skipped the honey and ran instead, right through the apartment complex and right past the crews chasing after it. The humans lost sight of the bear after it crossed into a wooded area near the Interstate.

Police said they ruled out tranquilizing the bear early on because of the threat to humans. The tranquilizer, authorities said, does not take effect for 10 minutes, during which a bear of its size could run as many as three miles.