Tranquilizing an animal usually doesn't make it much safer, or better protected. If they had tranqued it, it would have fallen out of the tree and possibly hurt itself--I know somebody that has seen video of a bear being tranqued, falling out of the tree, bouncing off (and out of) the trampoline that they had set up for it to land softly on, and snapping its neck.

Plus, a groggy bear is a dangerous bear.

Optium--I agree with you, but you forgot about cuteness. You kill a possum, nobody cares, but you kill a cat, and you're a monster. Catch a rat and you're a hero, but step on a hampster and you're Satan incarnate. I still haven't figured out how the hell...dammit, I forgot their names..."sea cows"...Manitees. That's it. Those things are uglier'n hell, I don't know how people can see them as cute, or want to protect them any more than anything else. Or the dolphins that used to get taken up in tuna nets. If tuna get caught up in any other nets, does anybody care? No, because tuna are ugly.