California Bear Cub Rescued From Dumpster

— -- A bear cub was rescued from a dumpster in Pasadena, Calif., after wildlife officials used a bean bag round to scare off its mother who was circling the dumpster, unable to help her baby.

Wildlife officials found the baby bear cub on Thursday trying to jump out of a dumpster in a residential area near Angeles National Forest, but unable to quite scale the dumpster’s walls.

"We don't know how it got in," Janice Mackey of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife told ABC News. "[It] probably climbed over on it's mother's back but couldn't get out."

Before officials could rescue the cub, they had to scare away the mother bear who was circling around the dumpster trying to help.

"We used a bean bag round to push the mother away from the dumpster and she ran over a fence and climbed a tree," said Mackey. "Then we put a ladder inside the dumpster and let the baby walk on the ladder out."

The two wildlife officials who responded to the call then shepherded the cub in the same direction as where its mother had just fled.

"It climbed another tree about 40 yards away from the mother and began crying and the mother climbed down and got the cub," said Mackey.

The process of rescuing the cub from the dumpster took about two hours, according to Mackey, but the bears were not quote done with their trip to suburbia.

After their reunion, the mother bear and cub were spotted sleeping in a tree next to a backyard pool.

"What happens usually is that we get them out of the spot that they're in and then they slowly make their way back to the habitat," Mackey said of the bears that are relatively common in the area.

In this case, wildlife officials let the mother bear and her cub find their way back home on their own.

"A cub is dependent upon its mother and to tranquilize them and put them back into their habitat, there is always an inherent risk," Mackey said. "The best course of action here was just to back off and let them have their space and make their way back to their habitat."

"The mother bear always knows what's best for her cubs," she said.