DEEP killing of Canton bears draws criticism
CANTON — The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection euthanized a mother bear and tranquilized her cubs this week after the adult animal broke into several local homes, but the Humane Society believes these measures could have been prevented.
While a DEEP spokesperson said conservation police tried unsuccessfully to use “aversive conditioning” before resorting to more drastic measures, Annie Hornish, Connecticut state director for the Humane Society of the United States, questioned whether the agency employed those tactics.
“We're waiting to get data from them as to what they actually did,” she said.
Jenny Dixon, wildlife director at DEEP, said on two occasions prior to euthanizing the bear, officers shot “bean bag rounds” to scare the animal, an example of aversive conditioning.
“The things that we would normally see happen with something like that is a lot of times that will help make bears a little bit more afraid of people again and kind of break that association that humans are a way to find food,” Dixon said. “This bear was not responding to that. So for her, that association as people equals food was very, very strong.”
Aversive conditioning can involve non-lethal tactics like rubber bullets and bear spray.
Hornish feels the Canton situation could have been handled differently.
If bears are spotted in a neighborhood, Hornish said it can help if residents make loud noises like blowing a whistle or banging pots and pans together. Without these aversive sounds, the bear will begin to get comfortable among people and in their spaces.
“It has to be a community-wide effort,” Hornish said. “For obvious reasons, you know, if your neighbor has an easy food source, the bear will, could walk over to your property to get there. So everyone has to participate with it.”
When the mother bear was euthanized, her three cubs were tranquilized and one never woke up, DEEP officials said.
“When you kill the mother, these cubs are too young to live on their own, even at five to six months, it's very unlikely they're going to survive the winter,” Hornish said. “They're probably not going to learn foraging skills. They could be easily predated upon by other animals at this age.”
However, Dixon said death is always a risk when using a tranquilizer. She also said the cubs were left in a place in northwestern Connecticut where DEEP has successfully relocated bears in the past.
“It's really good for them to be able to stay together and forage for natural foods, especially being away from an area where they're going to continue to have that interaction and that reinforcement that humans are a source of food,” Dixon said.
But some state legislators are also calling for a closer examination of how DEEP handled this situation.
“DEEP's wildlife division is now behind a cub dying from tranquilization,” state Rep. David Michel, D-Stamford, said in a Facebook post. “They have not yet answered even the simple questions out of all I sent over to the director of that division. I asked for the sex, weight, age of each cub and how much tranquilizer was used ... if they cannot answer that within a few hours, then what?”
But Dixon defended DEEP's actions, reiterating the agency's focus on bear and public safety.
“And at the end of the day, what we do is based on trying to do what's best for the bear population as a whole in the state of Connecticut, and also what's important to protect public safety,” she said.