State tranquilizes bear in Bristol neighborhood to replace GPS collar

Those who live near Vanderbilt Road and Fairfield Street in Bristol say it's pretty normal to see bears around.

"They are our friends, they come every year. I've been here almost five years," Jessica Duque, of Bristol, said.

Duque said just three days after moving to the neighborhood, she spotted five bears in her front yard. So, it wasn't a shock to Rose Laviero when she recently learned bears were living on her property, a heavily wooded area.

"I've been trying to develop it for about 15 years now," Laviero said.

But bears have made themselves comfortable in there, and on Friday, EnCon Police came out to replace one of the bear's GPS collars. This bear was a 12-year-old female black bear, according to DEEP.

To do this, they needed to tranquilize her, which would put her to sleep for a few hours. But at one point, the bear ran off into neighbors' yards.

However, the state was able to find her down and replace the device.

DEEP said this was a routine bear den visit to better understand Connecticut's black bear population.

They also tested the bear's health and would have done the same to her cubs if they were present.

Connor Hogan, director of Mclean Game Refuge, the state's largest wildlife sanctuary, said this is typically when bears start to wake up and move around.

"With these increasingly warm Marches, we're seeing bears earlier and earlier," Hogan said.

And they're popping up around the state. A family from Granby sent us video of a large bear sitting on their pool cover Wednesday.

The very next day, four bears were spotted in the front yard of a home in Avon, nibbling at bird feeders.

"I would also just remind people to be careful around bears. It's really healthy for the bears to be scared of us and we should have a healthy respect for them," Hogan said.

He also recommends putting away your bird feeders, securing your trash and reporting any bear sightings, especially if they're showing dangerous behavior.