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RateGot bears?
Here’s what to do
By Claude Haton
CAIRO — “We have a lot of bears living amongst a lot of people in the Catskills,” DEC Wildlife Biologist Larry Bifaro said Wednesday. “The best thing to do if you encounter a bear is just back away.”
Bifaro’s comments came in response to reports of bear sightings in the Canniff Road area of Cairo earlier this week. Residents there contacted the Daily Mail to report the sighting of a mother and two cubs foraging for food in the area. Their concern was for school children waiting for the school bus.
The sightings began earlier this week. Marietta Gardner said she heard the bears before she saw them during a cookout.
“We heard them coming through the woods while we were grilling.” she said Wednesday.
Neighbor Ethel Felix said her 17-year-old daughter Rosa, along with Gardner’s 13-year-old son Kevin Zoborski, also spotted the animals while riding the school bus on Monday. Felix managed to snap a photo of the animal with her digital camera later that day.
Calls to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, local police and 911 dispatchers yielded similar advice, the women said — just leave them alone and don’t leave food or anything else out to attract them.
Open garbage, leftovers thrown out for raccoons and bird feeders will all tempt bears into your yard, experts say. Simply curbing those behaviors will reduce the chances that bears become nuisance animals that might have to be destroyed.
“Bears are natural to Greene County,” said a Greene County 911 dispatcher. “We get calls all the time about bear sightings. One lady called to say she saw a bear along the Thruway.”
Unless it was hitchhiking, which is illegal, he joked, there’s not much anyone can do about it.
“Bears look for birdfeeders, garbage,” when they approach residences, he said. “A lot of it is just common sense: You need to keep stuff away from them.”
“And don’t get between mama and her babies,” he added.
The Canniff Road bear has been timid, he noted, and runs away from people when approached. Felix’s photos of the bear supports this observation. All of them show the animal and her two cubs up trees, where they escape for safety.
Just within the past couple of weeks, as reported in the Daily Mail, EnCon officers and Greene County Sheriff’s Deputies were forced to destroy three bears in the Hunter area that had become a nuisance in one neighborhood. The dispatcher we spoke with countered that by noting that shortly afterward, DEC Rangers rescued three cubs after their mother was killed along Rte. 23A.
“Nature is what it is,” he noted, adding that in all his years of local dispatching, he knew of no direct conflicts between a bear and a human.EnCon biologist Bifaro echoed that sentiment, pointing out that an infant killed by a bear a couple years ago downstate was likely a case of mistaken identity.
In that case, a swaddled infant was carried off by a bear, and Bifaro surmised that the bear may have smelled formula or other food on what it simply saw as a package. The death was likely accidental.
“We can’t predict the behavior of every animal,” he concluded, “But history is on our side. Bear attacks (locally) are almost nonexistent.”
The woman agreed that they just wanted to help notify the public about bears.
“We just want people to be aware,” said Gardner. “People need to leave them alone. Don’t feed her, and do something with their garbage.”
By Claude Haton
CAIRO — “We have a lot of bears living amongst a lot of people in the Catskills,” DEC Wildlife Biologist Larry Bifaro said Wednesday. “The best thing to do if you encounter a bear is just back away.”
Bifaro’s comments came in response to reports of bear sightings in the Canniff Road area of Cairo earlier this week. Residents there contacted the Daily Mail to report the sighting of a mother and two cubs foraging for food in the area. Their concern was for school children waiting for the school bus.
The sightings began earlier this week. Marietta Gardner said she heard the bears before she saw them during a cookout.
“We heard them coming through the woods while we were grilling.” she said Wednesday.
Neighbor Ethel Felix said her 17-year-old daughter Rosa, along with Gardner’s 13-year-old son Kevin Zoborski, also spotted the animals while riding the school bus on Monday. Felix managed to snap a photo of the animal with her digital camera later that day.
Calls to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, local police and 911 dispatchers yielded similar advice, the women said — just leave them alone and don’t leave food or anything else out to attract them.
Open garbage, leftovers thrown out for raccoons and bird feeders will all tempt bears into your yard, experts say. Simply curbing those behaviors will reduce the chances that bears become nuisance animals that might have to be destroyed.
“Bears are natural to Greene County,” said a Greene County 911 dispatcher. “We get calls all the time about bear sightings. One lady called to say she saw a bear along the Thruway.”
Unless it was hitchhiking, which is illegal, he joked, there’s not much anyone can do about it.
“Bears look for birdfeeders, garbage,” when they approach residences, he said. “A lot of it is just common sense: You need to keep stuff away from them.”
“And don’t get between mama and her babies,” he added.
The Canniff Road bear has been timid, he noted, and runs away from people when approached. Felix’s photos of the bear supports this observation. All of them show the animal and her two cubs up trees, where they escape for safety.
Just within the past couple of weeks, as reported in the Daily Mail, EnCon officers and Greene County Sheriff’s Deputies were forced to destroy three bears in the Hunter area that had become a nuisance in one neighborhood. The dispatcher we spoke with countered that by noting that shortly afterward, DEC Rangers rescued three cubs after their mother was killed along Rte. 23A.
“Nature is what it is,” he noted, adding that in all his years of local dispatching, he knew of no direct conflicts between a bear and a human.EnCon biologist Bifaro echoed that sentiment, pointing out that an infant killed by a bear a couple years ago downstate was likely a case of mistaken identity.
In that case, a swaddled infant was carried off by a bear, and Bifaro surmised that the bear may have smelled formula or other food on what it simply saw as a package. The death was likely accidental.
“We can’t predict the behavior of every animal,” he concluded, “But history is on our side. Bear attacks (locally) are almost nonexistent.”
The woman agreed that they just wanted to help notify the public about bears.
“We just want people to be aware,” said Gardner. “People need to leave them alone. Don’t feed her, and do something with their garbage.”
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jimaura wrote on Oct 29, 2009 2:19 AM: