DEM Officer John R. Gingerella secures a bear trap as he prepares to leave the area in Narragansett where a black bear has been seen.

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The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

NARRAGANSETT — “He’s probably somewhere sleeping,” said Steven H. Hall, chief of the DEM’s Division of Law Enforcement, about the black bear last spotted in a heavily populated neighborhood off Route 1A.

“It’s been pretty quiet the last couple of hours,” Hall said yesterday afternoon, though he was still considering calls that came in earlier in the day from Saunderstown, about three miles north, where two residents said they spotted a bear.

It had him wondering, he said, if there might be two bears on the run.

“We don’t know if it’s the same bear.”

A Narragansett police officer was the last one to see a bear, early yesterday in the Mettatuxet area. Hall said there were reports of a bear in the immediate area of Mettatuxet, including in the parking lot of an apartment complex and on the other side of Route 1A.

Yesterday morning, about a half dozen Department of Environmental Management police officers gathered in the parking lot of Twin Willows on Boston Neck Road. A bear trap had been brought to the area.

“We’re trying to keep track of him,” said DEM Officer John R. Gingerella, who took a photo of the bear on Tuesday after it had crossed Narrow River from South Kingstown.

Reports of bear sightings started coming in to the DEM more than a week ago starting in Glocester, Hall said. Calls continued from Scituate, Coventry, West Greenwich, South Kingstown and Narragansett, where officers said the bear ripped apart a bird feeder and was seen on several streets.

Once word got out about the bear, Gingerella said, crowds gathered.

“There were so many people it became like a parade setting.”

Gingerella guessed that the runaway bear is “a teenage boy looking for his own place.”

Television and radio station reporters also gathered in the parking lot.

Residents of the Mettatuxet neighborhood went ahead with lawn mowing and dog walking, but there were few trash cans in view. The DEM and local police recommend that residents take down bird feeders and take in trash cans to discourage the bear from feeding on them.

Authorities hoped to have had the bear captured by yesterday morning. But as darkness fell last night, the bear (or bears) was still eluding his pursuers, “There probably won’t be any more sightings until the morning,” said Mike Mahoney, a DEM dispatcher, last night.

—With reports from staff writer Scott MacKay

afleming@projo.com