{"id":595587,"date":"2026-04-20T13:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/595587\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T13:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:23:08","slug":"bear-sightings-surge-with-more-than-1250-reports-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/595587\/","title":{"rendered":"Bear sightings surge with more than 1,250 reports this year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">FARMINGTON, Conn. (WFSB) &#8211; Connecticut has received more than 1,250 bear sighting reports this year as warmer weather brings the animals into populated neighborhoods in search of food.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">State data shows West Hartford has reported 119 sightings this year. Simsbury has reported 113, Farmington has seen 74 and Torrington has reported 58.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">DEEP officials said bears are moving deeper into populated areas, which means residents could see them in places they never have before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Last year, more than 12,000 bear sightings were reported statewide. Bears broke into 40 homes across 18 towns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Officials urge residents not to run if they come face-to-face with a bear. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Instead, make yourself known by yelling or clapping, make noise and back away slowly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">DEEP recommends keeping a lid on trash, bringing in pet food and removing anything that could attract bears.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WFSB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FARMINGTON, Conn. (WFSB) &#8211; Connecticut has received more than 1,250 bear sighting reports this year as warmer weather&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[19122,16405,10335,20242,15861,20244,259734,2853,79,3102,70562,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-595587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-bears","9":"tag-black-bears","10":"tag-brown-bears","11":"tag-connecticut-news","12":"tag-ct-news","13":"tag-deep","14":"tag-farmington-news","15":"tag-report","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-sightings","18":"tag-warmer-weather","19":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595587","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=595587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}