{"id":592765,"date":"2026-04-19T01:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T01:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/592765\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T01:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T01:13:11","slug":"cameras-on-ct-bears-show-how-they-really-behave-in-the-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/592765\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameras on CT bears show how they really behave in the wild"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

A bear is seen in a video screengrab taking a bag of Doritos. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection attached cameras to a handful of bears in the state to monitor their habits.<\/p>\n

Courtesy of CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection<\/p>\n

Of the 32 black bears tracked by Jason Hawley and his team at the Connecticut state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, his favorite was the bear<\/a> known only as \u201c250.\u201d<\/p>\n

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250 was already\u00a0collared when Hawley started at DEEP 22 years ago and, over the course of that time, the bear learned a bit about human behavior herself.<\/p>\n

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\u201cShe used to just play games with us. Every year we have to go in and change the battery on their collar. She just knew I was coming,\u201d he said. \u201cI can remember one time I went after her in a snowstorm, because sometimes they lose their senses a little bit when it’s windy or it’s snowing, and next thing I know, she’s up on this ridge just looking down at me. I swear she was smiling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biologists use collars to track bears, often entering dens when they believe the bear is hibernating and administering a sedative to make sure the animal remains asleep.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are now about 1,100 black bears in Connecticut<\/a>, with each female bear, or sow, birthing an average of\u00a02.5 baby bears per year. As the state’s bear population grows, Hawley said it’s important to study the bears, both to help protect the bears and the people they are increasingly coming into contact with.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

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Usually, bear collars have GPS trackers installed so biologists can track the bears\u2019 movements but Hawley, a supervising wildlife biologist for the state\u2019s black bear program, and his team recently finished a pilot program that involved affixing a video camera to the bears\u2019 collars.<\/p>\n

The cameras, which captured 30-second bursts of footage every 15 minutes, offered the biologists more insight into the lives of bears and how they interact with the world around them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA GPS collar can only tell you so much, right? Because it’s just a point on a map. It shows us how a bear moves through the landscape. We’re getting a location every 30 minutes,\u201d Hawley said.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/p>\n

A bear is seen in a video screengrab walking in the woods and spotting another bear. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection attached cameras to a handful of bears in the state to monitor their habits.<\/p>\n

Courtesy of CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection<\/p>\n

For example, Hawley has theorized that bears choose which kind of garbage cans to open, avoiding the bear-resistant cans in favor of easier pickings. In summertime, when there is food aplenty, bears might gravitate toward one type of foliage and away from another. Hawley said this technology, as it continues to advance, will help biologists better understand whether those theories prove accurate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’ll really shown us how these bears are making \u2018decisions\u2019 as they’re moving through the landscape, especially these more urban bears,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One resulting video clip shared with CT Insider shows a bear as she swims through a waterway, her snout at the top of the screen. Another clip shows a bear snuffling around someone\u2019s back porch until she finds a bag of\u00a0Doritos, which she promptly snatches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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DEEP biologists call them \u201cbear-cams,\u201d and they offer information, Hawley said, \u201cthat will help us mitigate conflicts with the public, like things that bears are looking for when they’re moving through the landscape, things that those points on a map really can’t tell us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next step is a partnership between DEEP, UConn and NASA to use bears to help verify information on ground-level plants obtained by orbiting satellites. After that,\u00a0Hawley is hoping to expand the bear camera program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A bear is seen in a video screengrab eating berries. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection attached cameras to a handful of bears in the state to monitor their habits.<\/p>\n

Courtesy of CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we’re in the planning stages of getting a larger camera study going, maybe on 20 bears this time instead of four or five,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Connecticut is home to a growing black bear population and, as the bear population grows, so does their range. In 2025, there were black bear sightings reported to DEEP in 79 Connecticut towns, according to the agency’s most recent \u201cState of the Bears\u201d report<\/a>, released in March.<\/p>\n

There are an estimated 1,100 black bears calling the state home, though Hawley noted that \u201cbears don\u2019t understand borders.\u201d As the bear population increases and their range expands, human-bear conflicts are also on the rise.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of bear-related incidents involve livestock or property, but there were three reported bear attacks last year in Connecticut. Since 2020, DEEP has verified 265 reports of bears entering homes, occurring in 38 different towns.<\/p>\n

Over the last six years, Connecticut has averaged four home entries for every 100 bears every year, four times as many as any surrounding state. Both New York and Massachusetts, which have larger resident bear populations and similar human population density, average one home entry per 100 bears each year.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/p>\n

A bear is seen in a video screengrab swimming. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection attached cameras to a handful of bears in the state to monitor their habits.<\/p>\n

Courtesy of CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection<\/p>\n

That, Hawley said, is because Connecticut is the only state in New England with no legal bear hunt, with the exception of Rhode Island which is currently home to very few bears.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can kind of think of it as like human-driven evolution, right,\u201d he said. \u201cThese bears are comfortable around humans and breaking into homes. They’re just not in those other states where you just have that slight, although constant pressure of removing those more habituated bears that are comfortable around humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Massachusetts allows hunters to harvest no more than 6% of the state\u2019s bear population, an annual average of 262 bears. But even that\u2019s enough to teach bears to avoid human interaction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat just keeps that natural, healthy fear of humans in them, and we just don’t have that in Connecticut,\u201d Hawley said.<\/p>\n

That was 250\u2019s fate. She was nearing her 30th birthday \u2013 \u201cWhich for a bear is very old,\u201d Hawley said \u2013 and wandered across the border during hunting season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe actually got shot in Massachusetts last year, which was a real bummer for me,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was a good bear that didn’t cause any problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

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