Bobbi didn’t deserve this

To the editor,

Bear 217, “Bobbi.” was well documented around Newtown but her notoriety didn’t justify gunning her down with an AR-15 on May 12.

The News-Times recent article “Bear in Newtown had become ‘habituated’ ...” provides a much-needed education on our role in instigating human-bear interactions. And it points up the needless wildlife toll when we don’t take that role seriously.

But is the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection taking its role seriously as manager and guardian of our wildlife when a member of the public takes the law into their own hands? DEEP excused the killing as a justifiable exception to the law because the shooter feared for the “safety of his family, for himself, and for his livestock.” In these reports, however, the fear expressed was mostly about hypothetical and possible future events, not that immediately preceding repeated discharge of his AR-15.

The law (CGS Sec. 26-80a) makes it a crime to, among other things, “pursue” or “kill” a bear. The shooter and his family were safely inside when he chose, rather than contacting DEEP, to arm himself with an AR-15, his selfdescribed “safety blanket.” He left the confines of his home and confronted the animal — a bear who repeatedly retreated to a neighbor’s property or the tree line to avoid him — and then shot her dead.

As for the chickens, Connecticut’s definition of “livestock” doesn’t include “chickens” (CGS 26-1(20)). “Livestock” or not, the shooter had admittedly been feeding them to wildlife for years. And the reports indicate he was either still free ranging them or that he had stopped using them as wildlife bait only a few weeks earlier.

An earlier News-Times piece, “Report details why CT off-duty cop was cleared ...” relates conflicting quotes between DEEP and the State’s Attorney regarding ultimate responsibility for reviewing bear shooting cases for culpability. Those conflicts lead to legitimate questions about the trajectory of this case.

The law was broken when the bear was pursued and killed, but whether it was justified is subjective. Ultimately, a spokesperson for the Danbury State’s Attorney’s office stated it was “determined that a crime had not been committed.” By declining to hold the shooter accountable, the state has let us, and the wildlife it is charged to protect, down.

Bobbi may have been a girl with a past but she didn’t ask for or deserve this end. Allowing the facts in this case to subvert the law sets a precedent that will haunt us.