Black Bear Sightings Off Hanover Road

By Dottie Evans

A good-sized black bear has been seen roaming through woods and back yards in the northern part of town this week and it seems his home stomping grounds may be in the heavily wooded, 800-acre Upper Paugussett State Forest.

So far, no one is panicking, but State Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Wildlife Biologist Paul Rego advises Hanover Road residents to temporarily stop feeding birds, and to store their garbage in tightly sealed containers inside closed garages.

“Bears are out of their winter dens looking for food. Very often they find it near homes and some might actually search around buildings if they are rewarded by finding birdseed or garbage,” Mr Rego said Tuesday during a phone interview from his office at DEP headquarters in Sessions Woods, Burlington.

“There is a tendency for males to be active earlier in the spring. A single bear’s territory could be very large, and he might wander quite extensively,” Mr Rego added.

It is possible, he said, that this bear could have already established his territory in the Upper Paugussett State Forest, and Newtown’s northern Hanover Road area is on the fringe.

“It’s possible he will be there throughout the year. There is generally no reason to worry, because bears are not aggressive to humans or pets, though they can cause problems with livestock.”

Mating season is June and July, Mr Rego said, and the bear population in Connecticut is growing. There were 1,400 bear sightings in 2003, up from more than 600 sightings in 2002 and 400 sightings in 2001. According to DEP data, the highest concentration of bears is in northcentral Connecticut, but there have been bears reported all the way south to Cheshire, Trumbull, and Shelton.

Add Newtown to the list.

Grab The Camera, Quick!

The first sighting occurred Sunday, April 4, on a rainy afternoon at 3 Bramble Trail, which is part of a new development of seven or eight houses off Hanover Road south of the Pond Brook boat launch. Eleven acres of common green space behind the homes adjoins the state forest.

Bess and Eric Hutchinson, who moved into their Bramble Trail home in September 2003, were outside waiting for company. According to Mrs Hutchinson, it was 2:15 pm when Eric happened to look into the woods behind their house.

“He said, ‘My God, there’s a bear out there. Quick, get the camera!’ He managed to photograph it from our deck before it went over the ridge toward a blue house. It’s an open woods and we could really see it clearly,” she said.

“It was all alone, and looked sort of like a teenage bear. Not enormous but not a baby either. A good size.”

Unfortunately, their children, Lauren, Chase, and Sydney, did not see the bear because they were on the other side of the house and it was gone before they could get there. But they brought their father’s digital photo of the bear to school the next day.

Mr Hutchinson said Wednesday that he had heard from a friend on nearby Silver City Road that a black bear had been seen in November 2003, “so I’m thinking he’s been around here for awhile now.”

“I thought the neighbors ought to know about this,” he said, adding he hoped the bear would not present problems.

“I’d hate to see anything happen to him,” Mr Hutchinson said.

 

At The Feeder,                  On The Deck

Another sighting of, presumably, the same black bear took place off Tamarack Road behind the home of Jim Wright. He caught the bear raiding his birdfeeder early Wednesday morning, April 7, and was able to email his photo to The Bee office with the note, “Look who came to breakfast at our birdfeeder this morning.”

Mr Wright was not available for further comment in time for this story.

A closer encounter with a third area resident occurred on Sunday evening, April 4, the same day the bear was seen by the Hutchinsons. It was reported by David Kendall of 146 Hanover Road just north of Bramble Trail.

“My daughter and son-in-law [Michelle and Russell Helm] were over cooking dinner in the kitchen and the back door was all steamed up. Russ saw something on the deck and thought it was the dog. He cleaned off the steam and said, ‘My God, it’s a bear.’ My wife went wild,” Mr Kendall said.

“When it saw Russ’s hand move, it ran off the deck. I ran out the utility room door and yelled ‘Whoa!’ and the bear ran away with that galloping motion to the back property line, and then it stopped and looked around,” Mr Kendall said.

“He had some sort of white thing, like a plastic bag, in his mouth. Then he ran off into the state forest. As near as I could judge, he was in good condition and I think it was a male, probably about 175 to 200 pounds. He was about the height of a great Dane and he was in good shape. His fur was glossy and fluffy, not ratty looking.

“We did get a pretty good look at it––and looking back on several unexplained incidents this winter, I think he’s been here before,” Mr Kendall added.

He said one of their bird feeders had been raided and carried off, and the iron post used to hang it had been bent “way over.”

“He must live in the forest because deer and bear always share habitat. He hasn’t really damaged anything and hasn’t menaced any dogs. We’ve got a leash law, after all. He’s not hurting anything. I hope we can let him live.”

The Bear Facts

According to DEP data, black bears can weigh between 150 and 200 pounds, and adult males may weigh up to 300 pounds. They are omnivorous and largely vegetarian, but they will eat garbage and bird food if they can find it.

Black bears are normally found only in forested areas, but within those areas they are highly adaptable. Historically, they seem to have stayed away from open habitat because of the risk of predation by brown bears. Average longevity in the wild is 20 to 25 years. They are presently found in northern Mexico, in 32 states of the United States, and all the provinces and territories of Canada except Prince Edward Island.

After mating in early summer, pregnancy lasts about 220 days, and the cubs are born in a maternity den in January and February. The average litter size is two.

“It was only 15 or 20 years ago that we weren’t sure we had resident bears in this state,” Mr Rego said in a recent AP news story.

“In the weeks ahead, hundreds of black bears in Connecticut will awaken fully and begin to forage for skunk cabbage. That’s when homeowners and others will start calling the DEP with bear sightings likely in record numbers, if recent years are any indication,” Mr Rego said.

Black Bear Shot                 In Goshen

While the great majority of the 1,400 black bears reported living in Connecticut are co-existing relatively peacefully with humans, there is one particular bear in Goshen who became a problem and had to be destroyed.

The DEP had been watching a 300-pound male in the northwestern corner of the state, and it had been “on probation” with state biologists and environmental officers after it killed three sheep in Morris last year. Known as Bear No. 103, it was shot on Friday, April 2, after it tried to push its way into a home.

Killing the bear was not something that officials wanted to do, however, and that action was taken only as a last resort when the bear’s aggressive behavior became a public safety issue.

After the bear was shot a close range with a 12-guage shotgun, the Waterbury Republican-American quoted DEP Environmental Police Officer Keith Schneider as saying, “A lot of thought went into this decision to kill the bear, but his boldness and lack of fear of humans was what told his fate.”

Anyone wishing to call the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Wildlife Division to report or discuss a bear sighting should ask for Paul Rego at 860-765-8130.