Posted on 04/22/2008 6:12:42 AM PDT by NewJerseyJoe
VERNON — A Lake Wanda man, investigating a noise in his house, came face to face with a bear rummaging through his kitchen trash Sunday evening and escaped through a bedroom window to call police from a neighbor's home.
A responding officer spotted the bear in the front yard of the Chestnut Street home, still eating garbage. The officer fired once at the bear and believed he hit the animal, but the bruin ran off into the woods.
A Sunday night search of the area couldn't find any trace of blood or hair, and a follow-up search Monday could not find the bear.
Vernon police said the incident occurred just after 8 p.m. Sunday and the bear broke in through the front door to get into the house. Officer Harry Russo responded and fired his shotgun at the bear.
Neighbors said that earlier in the week the resident mentioned finding muddy bear paws on his front door.
While that bear apparently escaped, technicians from the state Division of Fish and Wildlife did "condition" another bear Monday that was captured in one of four culvert traps set up in the area.
In all, three bears have been caught in the traps set up in the area since last Wednesday when bear activist Susan Kehoe, who lives in the neighborhood, was accused of feeding bears.
Larry Herrighty, assistant director of Fish and Wildlife, said that during the investigation of the feeding of bears, conservation officers have seen up to 15 bears at a time around Kehoe's home, located at the end of Nutley Avenue and adjacent to Wawayanda State Park.
It is unusual for that many bears to congregate together, he noted, "But they seem to tolerate each other, probably because of the food."
Monday's capture was a 220-pound male that had not been tagged before, meaning it was the first time wildlife technicians had been close to the animal.
Herrighty said the bruin was tranquilized as genetic information, including blood and a tooth sample, were collected. The animal was then tagged with a very visible ear tag and given "aversive conditioning."
In "aversive conditioning," technicians, using shotguns loaded with rubber buckshot, shot the animal several times as they persuade it to return to the state park.
Herrighty said one of the animals captured late last week was a female and was fitted with a radio collar to become part of a years-long study of New Jersey's black bears. Females are preferred because they can be easily found when they den up in the winter.
None of the three animals caught in the culvert traps was the one that broke into the Chestnut Street home. That bear, if recognized, will likely be shot since it is known to break into homes.
Herrighty said the division is expecting shipment of a new type of bear collar within the next week.
The old style collar sends out a radio signal that is picked up by technicians carrying radio detection gear that they use to home in on the bear's location.
The new collars contain new GPS technology that sends out a signal that is received by satellites which then pinpoint, on any computer map, the bear's location each hour.
Using that technology, it could be possible to track an individual bear that broke into a house, if the bear were wearing such a collar.
All this information is part of a bigger study of black bears in New Jersey.
When state Commissioner of Environmental Protection Lisa Jackson canceled the black bear hunt in 2006, she said the state needed further study on the black bear population. Again last year, while rejecting a black bear management plan proposed by the state Fish and Game Council, she put forth her own plan, which called for more studies before she would even consider reinstating a hunt.
Kehoe, who is among those who have fought against a hunt, is due to appear in Vernon Municipal Court early next month to answer the disorderly conduct charge lodged as a result of her alleged feeding of the bears. She also was issued a written warning against feeding bears and, if caught a second time, would face a criminal charge.
Around 5 or 6 years ago I was looking at houses up in the Highland Lakes area of Vernon on a beautiful saturday afternoon. The realtor was in a separate car while my family and I followed him. After pulling away from one house, we made a turn down a quiet, street and saw a trail of garbage across the road. After making another turn we saw a mature bear rutting around in someone’s front yard (this was on a crisp, clear saturday afternoon, mind you). We turned another corner and saw another bear scampering across the street. My wife and I couldn’t envision any peaceful days spent in Highland Lakes wondering if our 3 young children would become “cuddle toys” for those “mischievous, fun-loving” bears. We stopped our house search in Vernon at once.
tcostell, thanks for posting those links to the blog articles. That blogger is saying exactly the same thing that I and many others have been saying for years: it’s going to take the killing (and probable consumption) of a child before people start to wake up in this state. Although — and it sickens me that I have to point this out — Kehoe and her ilk will be very public in saying “That child and his family shouldn’t have been living there in the first place.”
In Alaska, all bears are shot second time seen around anybodys cabin; it’s seen as everyones duty.
I had one neighbor who had bear in his cabin when he come home once. Bear wouldn’t leave cabin and was shot inside one of the bedrooms; what a stinky mess. One of the local Indians had a bear knock his heavy wooden door right off hinges with one swat. His german shepard chased bear off into the woods.
Bears need to fear people or you end up having problems.
VERY familiar with that sight! Bears don't just stop and eat garbage -- they pick up the bags in their mouths, and take it to a place more convenient for them. (I've witnessed this.)
A few years ago, I came home from work to see a trail of garbage from my driveway to the remote recesses of my back property. I knew it wasn't mine, because I don't have any -- I don't use the local garbage pickup (I'm single and take my one or two bags a month to my parents' house). The bear had taken the garbage to the most inaccessible part of my yard -- which happens to have a high water table and is soft (usually muddy) most of the year. I had to go back there with knee-high rubber boots and Playtex gloves to clean up the mess, with flies and skeeters and gnats buzzing all around me.
My neighbor (whose garbage it was) came over, saw that it was his, and apologized. He also stayed to help clean it up -- he's a good guy.
After that, I decided that, although I like watching bears, I didn't want them lingering around my property any more, and would discourage them from "hanging around" when I could.
A few weeks after that, on a Saturday in May, a momma bear and her two cubs were passing through the backyard one morning. I'd seen them a number of times before (they're territorial). I stuck my head out the back door, and just made some whooping noises to scare them away. Well, wouldn't you know that, as the cubs went up trees, that momma bear crossed about 35 feet of vegetation, rocks, and fallen trees in about 3 seconds, and was charging at me in my back doorway!
Although I wasn't expecting that, I knew in the back of my head that it was a possibility. So I quickly closed and locked the door (which is a sturdy door, not the hollow kind), and went around the side window to look. She had already stopped her bluff charge (about 15 feet from the door) and was heading back to her cubs.
You can mess (a bit) with Momma bear, but don’t you go messin’ with her cubs!
I used to go camping in Adirondack State Park with a buddy and if we discovered any bear tracks along the trail, we would think to ourselves, “Cool, we’re going to see some wildlife.” But if there were ever smaller, cub-tracks mixed in, we immediately got our guard way up.
I have a friend who lives down the mountain from Highland Lakes in Vernon (I forget the road you turn off of...maybe off of Rt 94 somewhere) and he would leave his dog’s food out over night (wasn’t exactly meticulous about sealing up his garbage, either—this, with 5 young children running around!). He would find himself sharing his yard with some bears every now and then...
Don’t they know he has a right to keep bear arms?!? ;-P
"Reader please take note, I’m already working on a piece for next September titled: “Experienced hunter seeks private land for NJ Bear hunt”… I promise I’ll say very nice things about you."
I'm hoping for something near the Bear swamp, but I'll be as flexible as I need to be. Please tell all your friends in the zone.
My best Rte 23 bear story:
Worked in Newfoundland off Oak Ridge Road. I was the intern, so every day I’d be up at the Dunkin Donuts on 23S at the La Rue/Clinton Rd exit.
One day I roll up to the drive up window, and a bear walks up behind me and opens the dumpster. I had a 5 minute order for 6 people, during this time the bear grabs a bag, walks past my car on the passenger side, stops, looks at me, and proceeds on his way. I’m freaked out, but then it gets better. This bear knew how to cross 23 during the Clinton Rd U Turn green light. When the light for the Clinton Rd North jughandle turned green, the bear looked both ways and took off north.
Kehoe wasn’t one of the four arrested in 2004. That was Lynda Smith, the queen lunatic in West Milford.
Typical liberal media...the color of the bear was not provided. I bet I know what it was.
The bears aren’t quite so “thick as thieves” in bitter Northeastern Pennsylvania as you saw them to be in Highland Lakes, MarDav, but they, and the newly-arrived coyotes, and the mountain lion rumors used to give pause to my Brooklyn wife, years ago. These days, though, she’s a bit more perceptive and, when visiting relatives, fears the various, nefarious, denizens of New York infinitely more than she fears any forest critter.
In 2006 I hiked out the park system just a mile north of the incident location in this article. I had the misfortune to walk between a mother bear and 2 yearlings who were mock chasing a few deer. I immediately turn around and bolt, 1/4 mile back down the trail i run into a family with young kids, I admonish them to immediately turn around as there is a mother bear with cubs ahead, and in a very bad mood. These fools pull out pocket cameras and tell the kids to start running... toward the bears.
Thanks for the clarification! Another member of the local enviro-nazi club.
Geez! That’s funny...and not...all at the same time!
I was checking the rearview mirror, as any driver does every few seconds, and saw two things simultaneously: a bear running out of the woods (from the reservoir side, toward the median), and an SUV way behind me -- on a collision course with the bear.
The front of that SUV hit the bear squarely, and the bear went down on its side, spinning around from the impact. Just before the rearview scene passed out of my sight, I saw -- you won't believe this -- the bear got up and ran back into the woods.
True story. All of this happened in the course of just a few seconds.
I have no doubt that that bear didn't get very far, and that it died of massive internal injuries soon afterwards. After all, the SUV was traveling at highway speed on an empty road. But it is a testament to the stamina of these animals, that the beast was even able to get up.
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