A bear looking to make a den under a home in Torrington prompted calls to CT DEEP over the weekend. It happened along Chamberlain Street in the town.<\/p>\n
Neighbors in the area said this could be a resident bear that frequents the area.<\/p>\n
DEEP considers this a great time to remind people about bears’ winter habits and why people should be bear-aware year-round.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey play in the water back there,\u201d explained Kathryn Richard, who lives along Chamberlain Street in Torrington.<\/p>\n
She was showing us a typical route where she and her neighbors spot a specific bear. Being bear-aware is common in town.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not really afraid for them, because that\u2019s a usual thing, we have to look out for them,\u201d said Richard.<\/p>\n
The Chamberlain neighborhood regularly sees bears using what Richard referred to as a \u201chighway\u201d or a path from a wooded area through their street and toward Route 202 in town. Richard lives along the path.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the summer, it’s almost daily, they have a path from over to behind this house, they go over to this bush here to the telephone pole, to our backyard, and across the street,\u201d Richard said.<\/p>\n
But over the weekend, a certain bear attempted to take residency in a neighborhood home\u2026 or more specifically, under it.<\/p>\n
According to DEEP, they were called to Chamberlin Street for a bear attempting to den under someone\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad it\u2019s not mine,\u201d said Richard, laughing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cIt wasn\u2019t trying to get into a house, it was trying to get under a house, for lack of a better way to put it,\u201d explained Jenny Dickson, director of the Wildlife Division with CT DEEP.<\/p>\n
She explained that this doesn\u2019t count as a home entry, which is a major concern for the department because of the dangers involved.<\/p>\n
It is, however, too close for comfort.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs our bears have become more habituated, more food conditioned, they are a lot less afraid of us and our neighborhoods, they are looking for more non-traditional denning areas, and that could mean under our deck,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She noted that calls to the department have increased regarding what she described as \u201cnon-traditional\u201d dens bears are considering, even in the winter.<\/p>\n
\u201cBears are not true hibernators, and I think that\u2019s one of the things that confuses people a lot,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Our bears here in Connecticut don\u2019t hibernate the way you might think. Dickson explained that bears do sleep for long periods, and their heart rate and body temperature drop during a long slumber, but they don\u2019t just sleep the winter away. They can be active.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to be bear-wise year-round; it isn\u2019t something we can get to December and say, ‘ Oh, it’s December first, we don\u2019t have to worry about bears until March […]\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
That means taking bears into consideration through the winter months, and scaring them back into their habitat is key if they come too close.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecognize we play a part in trying to keep bears wild and trying to keep bears safe,\u201d Dickson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bear looking to make a den under a home in Torrington prompted calls to CT DEEP over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,102060,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-394919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-torrington","10":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394919","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=394919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}