Making neighbors in Avon bear aware. State leaders and wildlife officials hosted a meeting in town Thursday evening aimed at educating people on how to live with bears.
This comes as more human-bear conflicts are being reported in recent years.
“There’s a big, huge black bear going through the dumpster and eating all the food," said Ron Cataldi.
Cataldi was startled to find a black bear trying to get into his dumpster in Avon Wednesday morning.
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“They’re all over the place here,” he said.
This comes after a woman was bitten by a bear last month while walking her dog. Cataldi has noticed more interactions recently.
“A lot of them have been happening here in Avon,” Cataldi said.
Local
Officials with DEEP say that news is not surprising.
“Avon is a town that has a lot of people, but it also has a lot of bear habitats, so it’s kind of prime for conflicts,” Jason Hawley, a DEEP bear biologist, said.
DEEP says there were a record 67 home entries by bears last year.
The agency, along with state leaders, held a meeting in Avon, to educate neighbors on living safely with bears and keeping them away from their homes.
The main takeaway: keep trash and food waste, which is also helping their population grow, away from bears.
“Those are high caloric food where they get larger quicker. They can reproduce. They have higher survival,” Hawley said.
Officials recommend removing all birdfeeders and scaring away black bears who are normally non-aggressive in nature from a safe distance like yelling or throwing objects.
“Once bears become habituated or food-conditioned, it’s very difficult to reverse that process,” Hawley said.
One state leader says bears and people are here to co-exist, but neighbors need to understand they’re not cuddly creatures and should start treating them as nuisances.
“If we can stop having so many cute bear videos and cute photographs and people spend more time scaring the animals away, because as you said, they are wild animals,” Rep. Eleni Kavros DeGraw said.
DEEP is encouraging people to report any bear sighting. Details on how to do that can be found here.
