{"id":324575,"date":"2025-12-01T19:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T19:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/324575\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T19:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T19:01:08","slug":"ct-officials-seek-ways-to-manage-bear-and-human-interactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/324575\/","title":{"rendered":"CT officials seek ways to manage bear and human interactions"},"content":{"rendered":"

As human interactions with bears in Connecticut are at an all-time high, with over 30 home break-ins reported this year<\/a>, the state\u2019s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is seeking public input<\/a> to guide future management strategies.<\/p>\n

So far in 2025, DEEP officials said they have documented nearly 30 bear home entries across 16 municipalities.<\/p>\n

While these numbers can vary from year to year, officials said this year\u2019s data continues to \u201cshow a concerning long-term pattern.\u201d In addition, bears have now been spotted in all 169 towns and cities throughout the state.<\/p>\n

State officials are holding bear management listening sessions<\/a> around the state beginning this week to seek out concerns residents may have about bears. The sessions will take place in Derby, Sharon, Burlington and West Hartford. The public input will help guide officials while creating the state\u2019s bear management planning report.<\/p>\n

\u201cFeedback from these sessions will inform the next phase of DEEP\u2019s bear management planning, which includes the creation of a report that will describe the current state of the bear population in Connecticut, public perceptions toward bears, implications of the state\u2019s growing bear population and various strategies for mitigating bear-related impacts,\u201d according to a DEEP spokesperson.<\/p>\n

Listening sessions will take place on Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Sessions Woods Wildlife Management Area in Burlington, Wednesday from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Sharon Audubon, Thursday from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Kellogg Environmental Center in Derby and Dec. 16 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the West Hartford Elmwood Community Center.<\/p>\n

Officials say the growing number of negative human and bear interactions is concerning. In August, a bear with cubs charged<\/a> at a Granby resident and his 5-year-old dog in their backyard. The man escaped uninjured, but his dog suffered serious but non-fatal injuries. In June, a West Hartford woman named said she used her water bottle<\/a> to fend off a bear from attacking her dog on a trail near Talcott Mountain.<\/p>\n

One of the more dangerous attacks this year came in June when a man was injured after being slashed by a bear<\/a>\u00a0in his backyard in North Canaan. The man, who was with his dog at the time, came between a bear with cubs and his dog on the property. DEEP officials said there were bird feeders on the property.<\/p>\n

In most cases, bears that become habituated or lose their fear of humans are often to blame for negative interactions with people, according to DEEP. Once bears are habituated, either through intentional or unintentional feedings, they can become dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen bears find food in our trash, bird feeders or pet dishes, they lose their natural fear of people and end up in our backyards \u2014 putting our families and pets at risk,\u201d said DEEP commissioner Katie Dykes. \u201cEvery resident has a role to play in protecting our communities. Be a good neighbor. Keep people safe and keep bears wild.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connecticut currently does not have a bear hunt season and the debate over hunting has been a hot-button issue for several years. This past legislative session, language in the proposed legislation, SB 1523<\/a>\u00a0\u201cAn Act Concerning Bear Hunting,\u201d failed to pass<\/a> through the state senate. Various other proposals for a limited bear hunting season<\/a> in the state\u2019s Northwest corner have also been unsuccessful. Connecticut along with Rhode Island are the only two states that don\u2019t have a bear hunt season in the Northeast, according to DEEP.<\/p>\n

Yet officials say Connecticut has the highest amount of human and bear interactions of any state in the region. In 2023, there were 3,093 human and bear conflicts in the state. That same year, Massachusetts, which has twice the bear population as Connecticut, had only 645 human and bear conflicts, according to the 2024 State of The Bears<\/a>, an annual DEEP publication.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Connecticut Wildlife Rehabilitators Association<\/a>, which has historically advocated against a bear hunt, is urging people to attend the hearings and speak out against a hunting season as an effective bear management strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cDEEP is holding regional \u2018bear-listening\u2019 sessions for public input. It\u2019s vital to attend one because the hunters are already mobilizing their members \u2014 and their lopsided attendance will lead DEEP to wrongly conclude that the public wants a bear hunt in CT! The way to stop human-bear conflicts is to eliminate what\u2019s attracting the bears \u2014 ie FOOD,\u201d the group said in a social media post.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, hunters and DEEP are using bear conflicts to push for legislation to open up CT for sport hunting, knowing many people have knee-jerk \u2018kill\u2019 responses rather than understanding the need to solve the problem at its source. We need to push DEEP to provide much more public education and resources to help communities co-exist with bears and commit to working with us on providing real solutions for orphaned cubs; not automatic euthanasia or letting them die,\u201d the group added.<\/p>\n

Various hunting groups, including the state\u2019s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, have advocated<\/a> for a limited hunting season in the past as an important management strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cDEEP supports a regulated harvest for two primary reasons: Human-bear conflicts have escalated in frequency and severity over the past decade resulting in elevated risk to the public, and this trend is likely to continue and to affect more Connecticut communities as bear populations increase and expand their range. Non-lethal bear management strategies, such as DEEP\u2019s significant investments in public education and outreach, have failed to decrease human-bear conflicts,\u201d Dykes previously told the Courant.<\/p>\n

The four listening sessions<\/a> are free, and seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, DEEP said. The sessions are open to the public and no town residency is required. DEEP is encouraging those who want to attend to submit an RSVP form<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stephen Underwood can be reached at sunderwood@courant.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As human interactions with bears in Connecticut are at an all-time high, with over 30 home break-ins reported…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[165643,19122,20242,15861,20244,42034,15862,80247,54429,983,79,201],"class_list":["post-324575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-bear-management","tag-bears","tag-connecticut-news","tag-ct-news","tag-deep","tag-department-of-energy-and-environmental-protection","tag-hartford-courant","tag-humans","tag-interactions","tag-local-news","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}