Progress made in the High Peaks, while some communities struggle with wildlife feeding problems
By Gwendolyn Craig
In Essex County’s town of Moriah one July evening, a resident called the state Department of Environmental Conservation about a neighbor feeding potato salad to black bears. The next day, the person offered the bears hamburgers, the caller reported.
Around the same time, but more than 100 miles west, campers at Nick’s Lake Campground in Old Forge were ticketed for treating black bears to vittles.
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Such picnicking with wild animals can lead to tragic ends.
In 2022, the Times Union reported four bears were euthanized in Long Lake, a town whose mascot is a black bear. This summer, DEC officers put down a mother bear and her two cubs after tourists cornered them while they were foraging in downtown Old Forge.
In the past eight years, the DEC has euthanized 54 black bears in Region 5 and 6 alone, the area that encompasses the Adirondack Park, due to conflicts with humans. That does not include 22 bears put down due to serious injuries or disease like mange.
Most of the 54 euthanized bears had broken into homes. A few others had exhibited aggressive behavior toward people or caused property damage. All but seven of the bears euthanized were in Hamilton and Herkimer counties, which contain Long Lake and Old Forge, respectively.
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Once bears get used to humans’ food, it can be nearly impossible to get them to return to wild foraging, said Jim Stickles, a DEC regional wildlife biologist.
This goes for purposeful feeding, like the picnic bears in Moriah learned to expect, and incidental feeding, like the snack opportunities from unsecured garbage cans and bird feeders.
“People who purposefully feed bears and other wildlife do not realize or even believe the ramifications of their actions,” Stickles said.
“Others may know that feeding bears and other wildlife has negative consequences, but ignore these consequences due to their enjoyment of watching and interacting with animals,” he said. “These issues can be especially acute in areas like the Adirondacks, where tourists may seek out opportunities to observe bears.”
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The bear deaths have generated outrage and frustration by many Adirondack Park residents, who in some cases are trying to change humans’ behavior at the local level. The town of Webb is pursuing a law against wildlife feeding, and the town of Long Lake created a bear education committee to help decrease human-bear conflicts.
“We are killing animals for nonsense,” said Lisa Bolton, a town of Webb resident at a September meeting about tougher fines and laws for illegal bear feeding. “We as a community are also responsible. Townspeople have to be on notice, too.”
Bears in the park
The DEC estimates the New York black bear population at 6,000 to 8,000, and approximately half are in the Adirondack region.
Adirondack landfills were once a main attraction for bears, and thus visitors, who would come to see the 200- to 600-pound Ursus americanus searching for food. Tourists and locals alike would set up lawn chairs around the open-air pits.
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Former Gov. George Pataki, who believed trash should not be trucked into the pristine 6-million-acre park, closed all landfills there in the 1990s.
Stickles said the closures helped resolve some bear issues in the Adirondacks, but residential and commercial garbage has remained a problem.
Sometimes bear-proofing one’s garbage can be costly or time consuming, Stickles said. And locals often don’t report bear encounters right away because they have a greater tolerance level for their wild neighbors.
Before euthanasia, the DEC may use rubber buckshot on bears in an attempt to change their behavior when they begin developing a taste for human food sources. But bears that are repeat offenders deemed a hazard to public safety are shot and killed. Sometimes chemicals are used before the euthanization, to keep the bear immobile.
Undoing decades of learned behavior
The bears used to finding easy meals at the former landfills took to searching for people food.
When Gary Lee, a retired forest ranger, purchased his Inlet property in 1998, he could see a bear path through the woods toward the former town dump. He was worried that the bears would mark their territory by scratching his house siding, so he built his home away from the trail.
Even though the landfill was removed, the bears found a friend in Lee’s neighbor, who was known to hand-feed the four-legged visitors from his back window. Lee said his neighbor had been ticketed multiple times and was even sent to jail.
“He kept feeding the bears no matter what they did to him,” Lee said.
The bears would come around to Lee’s house and look for similar treatment, only to find Lee’s wife shooing them out of the garage with a broom. And with Limekiln Campground not far away either, bears have gotten used to being fed by campers. It’s a hotspot where DEC records show a number of tickets made to out-of-town visitors for illegal wildlife feeding.
The problem, Lee said, is some people think the bears are tame. But when the bear approaches a person who does not want to feed it, it may bluff a charge.
“No one has been eaten by a bear yet,” Lee said. He’s heard of some getting whacked or bumped by them, especially when a bear enters a house. “Those bears actually end up getting shot,” he said.
Local action, increased penalties?
In Old Forge this summer, a female black bear and her cubs used to frequenting Nick’s Lake Campground, another site where campers have been ticketed for feeding bears, took a walk through downtown. The bears had also been spotted going through trash at various local businesses.
Some residents were mortified to watch a crowd surround the bears while taking photos and videos. After displaying aggressive behavior toward humans, the bears were euthanized by DEC officers.
The town of Webb, which includes the hamlet of Old Forge, is now proposing a local law that would include tougher fines and penalties for feeding bears and other wildlife. It wants to impose a minimum $1,000 fine for people who feed wildlife. The penalties would be greater than those in state law.
It’s unclear if the town can make such a law. The DEC said its legal team is reviewing the question of state and local jurisdiction.
Most feeding of wildlife including deer and bear is illegal. For a first-time offender, DEC environmental conservation officers usually issue a written warning. A second incident will lead to a violation, which could come with a fine of up to $250 and a penalty of up to 15 days in jail.
There have been about a dozen tickets issued in the last decade to people for feeding bears in Region 5 and 6, the Explorer learned through a Freedom of Information Law request.
To increase the state fines would take an action by the state Legislature. The DEC said New York has had a long-standing prohibition on feeding bears, but in 2010, DEC included prohibiting “incidental feeding of bears after DEC notification.” For example, if bears start coming to your bird feeder and a conservation officer asks you to take it down and you don’t, you could be ticketed.
To learn more about best practices for reducing bear-human conflicts, go to https://dec.ny.gov/nature/animals-fish-plants/black-bear/management/bearwise.
The DEC has several instances of issuing written warnings for incidental feeding of bears over the years.
In Franklin County, records show, a pig farmer reported bears breaking into the food storage shed in May 2021. When the environmental conservation officer visited the site, he noted “the farm to be a complete mess. Food and waste seemed to be everywhere.” The officer declined to issue the farm a permit to kill the bear, and instead told the farmer she needed to clean the property. He issued her a warning for incidental feeding of a bear.
In Plattsburgh in March 2021, a caller reported a bear destroying her enclosure where she had been feeding feral cats. The DEC officer told her “the feeding of cats needs to come to an end.”
Multiple Old Forge-area businesses have been told to secure their trash cans and dumpsters.
Success stories
Stickles said the best way to address encounters between humans and bears is education of the public and technical assistance. Removing food attractants helps stop bad bear behavior from starting.
This has already proven successful. In August 2005, a DEC regulation required food to be stored in bear-resistant canisters in the eastern High Peaks Wilderness. Stickles said since that regulation was passed, what used to be hundreds of annual reports of food loss has trickled to a few.
But the bears that had learned to get food from campsites in the High Peaks turned more aggressive, intimidating people “to abandon their open canisters during meal preparation,” Stickles said. The last of these notorious bears was euthanized in the summer of 2020.
Stickles said the lethal removal of a bear is always a last resort. But since that summer, “there have been no reported incidents of food loss and no bears euthanized in the eastern High Peaks Wilderness.” The DEC called it a “significant success.”
Jamie Organski contributed to this report.
Top photo: A black bear. Photo by Jeff Nadler
A well researched and written article. You can see how towns like Old Forge and Long lake have struggled with the issue by some residents and tourists. The best news is that the bear canister regulations in the high peaks has proven to be very successful.
In states like Maine where hunters can “bait” for bears – feed them, there must be huge numbers of bears that need to be euthanized each year? Is that the case? Back when we had open town dumps where bears were feeding and being taught to eat human food, again we must of had huge numbers of bears we had to euthanize. Do they? Did we? I am missing something here in the premise.
Hi Paul, Thanks for the questions and for reading. I believe Maine only allows baiting with a permit. Baiting is not allowed in New York. The DEC’s records of bear euthanizations only went back eight years, unfortunately. Former Ranger Gary Lee, as mentioned in this article, noted that some of the bears used to frequenting the landfills broke into homes and had to be euthanized.
Thanks. I think you need a permit to bait on State Land in Maine. Which I understand are pretty easy to get. Not sure about what you need on private land where I think a lot of the hunting happens in Maine, with so much land owned by timber companies. I saw one lodges website where they describe that they bait 7 days a week on 120 bait sites! Apparently baiting is allowed (with a permit) in NH as well, it is prohibited in VT. I am just surprised that all that baiting doesn’t create problems with nuisance bears. Maybe it does? Don’t know what those states states are on euthanizations? I was lucky and saw 4 bears this summer in the Adirondacks. A mom and her 3 cubs. Wow, are they good tree climbers! They were nice and far away from any human food sources. Thanks again for the info.
Paul,
Keep in mind the purpose of baiting. The adage still holds – “A fed bear is a dead bear.”. I doubt they live long enough to become a nuisance to anyone.
Also, it looks like the last bear that the state euthanized in Maine was in July 2023 – 2 bears. That year hunters harvested 3,272 bears in Maine. They have a larger bear population than in NYS. Something strange is going on here in NY?
What could it be? I might be going out on a limb here (pun intended) but I might start by assuming the State of Maine isn’t permitting bear baiting within residential neighborhoods, downtown or even within village limits. Probably not campgrounds either. Just a hunch.
Boreas, yes, they are trying to kill these bears. But a far greater number of bears that are eating baits (these are not only out when hunters are present) are not killed. According to the premise here that “conditioning” (baits are usually human food crops, apples, eytc.) the bears leads to more negative bear human encounters and the need to euthanize more bears does not seem to be playing out in Maine. Again, I am just noting that it looks like something else is going on in the Adirondacks. Given the rising bear numbers here, NYS should certainly allow baiting for hunters to try and reduce bear numbers, especially if there are no negative consequences. Bear territories are so large normally that just having one come by by chance is low probability.
This makes sad and infuriated at the same time. I do not understand why people would have been near a mother bear and two cubs? Do people not realize that they are a threat in that situation? Also, we need to learn to coexist with animals. We are all part of the ecosystem. I love bears! They are adorable, but they are wild animals that have an instinct to hurt you if they sense danger. Human beings are the same way. There needs to be some stricter policies implemented to help keep them and us safe. Shooting and euthanizing them are not solutions. Their behaviors are based on instinct whereas ours are illogical and nonsensical. I guess people need to be educated on to deal with wildlife in their everyday lives. I am hoping to see less of these articles and more positive ones in the future! Thank you for keeping us informed!
The world would be a scary place if humans only acted on instinct! You should give yourself more credit.
There are bears on tiktok that politely open and close doors, playfully take a bucket from a human, finger-nose bump a kind person, fold a door mat, nap on a door mat, enjoy being swung in a hammock by a person, and there has NEVER been any harm done to the person (over decades) by any of the sweet bears because the person treats the bears with the greatest respect! THERE SHOULD BE A FINE AGAINST ANY PERSON WHO DOES NOT RESPECT BEARS AND DOES NOT TAKE MEASURES TO AVOID INTERACTION THAT THEY PREFER NOT TO HAVE. IT IS UNETHICAL, CRUEL, AND CRIMINAL TO KILL BEARS -to erase their lives-to punish them for the faults of humans!!! HUMANS ARE ANTHROPOCENTRICALY ARROGANT TO THE EXTREME AND THE PUNISHMENT MUST BE ONLY AGAINST HUMANS WHO PROVOKE A BEAR “PROBLEM”. There are some bear biologists who advocate feeding black bears in the forest to prevent them from approaching houses in search of food. There’s plenty of healthy restaurant food waste that could be spread in forests. Euthanasia-murder of bears is inexcusable!
Noticed Clinton County isn’t on the graph. Is that because there’s been no bear euthanizations, or we’re not counting Clinton County as part of the Adirondacks?
Why don’t these people that want to feed wildlife try planting berry bushes and other types of food deer and bears and other animals eat in the wild so they won’t have to forage near people! I have wandered all over hiking and have hardly ever seen any type of Berry’s and the such growing for wild life.
Gloria,
Unfortunately people cannot do this on State land or other private land without permission. PLANTING food is typically not necessary (as nature plants the best stuff for wildlife), but forest management can provide clearings and such where bear pile on fat for the winter with berries. But within the Park, this type of cutting by the State is usually only allowed on WMA lands or easements. Several 5-acre (?) clearings were created about 10 years ago at Wickham Marsh WMA. No bears have appeared yet that I am aware of, but some “clearing” habitat was created that other species can use.
Penalties need to be much higher. First offense should be 2,500, second should be a minimum of 30 days in jail. If your feeding results in euthanizing a bear then you should see e severe time. 1000 bucks is not a deterrent to anyone that would get in that situation to begin with.
Paul has asked why baited bears don’t become a problem in Maine where baiting is legal. And notes more bears are euthanized here than in Maine.
The answer is simple. Bears who come to bait at permitted spots in Maine are shot. Hunters pay to hunt, landowners bait, and the hunters go home with dead bears as trophies. It’s not what I’d call sport, but the State of Maine is ok with this.
One can assume the landowner baits regularly through the year, feeding the bears so they come to depend on the easy food (and aren’t a nuisance elsewhere). When hunting season comes the landowner can guarantee every client gets a bear.
One can assume most bears coming to eat the bait will be shot. They don’t live to be nuisances.
Laurie, I think that is an incorrect assumption. Most of these bears are not shot, or they would kill a lot more bears in Maine each season. Most eat bait and move on when the hunters are not there.
We camped 2 nights at Forked Lake in August. The caretaker said 2 bears were euthanized there in summer. All the sites have steel bear boxes sufficient for the site limit of 6 people. However the site next door had 2 extended families of 15 people, 6 tents and enough supplies for the 2 week booking. There is NO way such a large group can “bear proof” all their food and garbage.
When we complained to the caretaker they did nothing and said the group was “nice” and did this several years in a row. I wrote DEC management in charge of the area in Indian Lake and Ray Brook and got no response.
DEC’s attitude apparently is it is easier to shoot bears than enforce their rules. Sorry bears!
Too many people these days are detached from commonsense nuts + bolts reality doing whatever they feel with impunity…!
Humans are the dumbest ever !! And these poor beats have to pay the price
Stop calling it euthanizing and hunt them to turn them into food and rugs lol
Maybe let nature take its course? After news of a few ” tragic” bear encounters and extensive media coverage, problem humans might modify their ignorant behavior toward bears.
So you built in every inch of grounds that you found and now you blame the bears you building their home and now you complain about it what the hell maybe you guys shouldn’t build everywhere that you find a spot that you like and be like hey let’s just build here leave the animals alone
I can understand the need to kill a bear that is a potential threat caused by the stupidity of some humans, however I can not agree with killing cubs. Those animals should be captured alive, rehabed
and returned to the wild in very remote locations away from where they were captured. I can think of several areas.
The problem is people, not the bears.
Good article, Gwen. I think it’s worth noting that hunters killed 1,356 bears in the state last year, including 485 in the Northern Zone.
Thank you for this article. Why not have a picture with an open palm with food and a bear’s snout? Next picture shows a “lights out” bear. Many NY visitors may not read English. You know what they say about pictures.
Unlike deer feeding, which actually can harm the wildlife through disease transference and humans through spreading those diseases to domestic animals, there’s a long and well established history of safe human-black bear interactions for decades throughout this country. Until relatively recently, when now we “must” execute these animals, and vilify anyone interacting (ie. living) with them. The DEC will happily euthanize dozens of harmless black bears vigorously prosecuting anyone who attempts to control the invasive cormorant, which the DEC actively protects. https://bear.org/bear-facts/myth-when-bears-lose-their-fear-of-people-they-become-more-likely-to-attack/
We are the problem not the bears – something to think about – animals do not need humans to survive on this planet – but animals do need each other and the plants to survive – let that sink in- re-read it…..
We can not continue this behavior and think that the planet and our species will be okay – no it is not okay to feed a wild animal and no it is not okay to euthanize a wild animal because we fear it – all of this is not okay!
Gwen, Enjoyed your article and reading the comments. As the retired Bear Biologist from Region 6, I can relate to the Old Forge situation. You may not be aware that there is a legislated game refuge around the Fulton Chain of Lakes from Old Forge to Inlet, and also around Big Moose, effectively creating a no hunting zone. This contributes to the deer and black bears who have no natural predators becoming semi domesticated,
We moved “old split ear” from OldForge to derp in the moose river plains. He came back the following year. And ended up being shot by a disgruntled homeowner in Old Forge. We moved a yearling from Lime Kiln campsite to Tupper Lake. He came back 3 years later and was shot at Okara Lakes breaking into a cooler at a campsite. Both bears had been ear tagged. And I could go on and on.
There used to be a bear dog training season when houndsmen could train their dogs by running them on live bears. This was a tool that DEC used to have to pressure nuisance bears away from habitation.
Would it be acceptable for humans to send dogs to chase after “nuisance” human toddlers, or to do worse to human toddlers, who are a “nuisance” to a neighborhood? Of course NOT ! The bear biologists should learn to respect bears and to be humane towards them. Bears and humans are equal in terms of their right to life and to humane and ethical treatment. It could even be argued that bears have more of a right to life because they have to struggle more to survive!
There is no question that DEC needs to be more aggressive in issuing fines for people who feed bears intentionally or not intentionally and these fines need to be significant. This is about public safety and there is plenty of research to show that bears that learn how to access people food cannot be rehabilitated and move on to demonstrate more aggressive behaviors to hikers, campers and the general public. Certainly, public education is necessary. However, some refuse to believe the subject matter experts and continue to feed bears for their own entertainment, despite the lethal consequences to the potential public and ultimately the bears. Mutual respect for wildlife means they live long natural lives and people can appreciate them as they should be- in their natural surroundings and wild from a respectful distance. As a solo backpacker, I am very appreciative of DEC’s efforts to keep our ADK safe to recreate in.
We just spent 3 weeks out west. In the national forest where we’d camped, they supplied very large metal bear boxes large enough for several coolers.
New York state has the responsibility to supply such at all lean-to’s and regularly used camp sites. New York has created an “attractive nuisance”, which is a legal term for their responsibility regardless of other’s actions.
It will now take years to reverse the bears behavior, as just taking out the offending bear still leaves it’s young that were taught by the sow to forage around humans. So, it’s at the very least a two generational period of time before we will have finally turned the corner and see a real resolution.
I was hiking at a DEC campsite in the Catskills and they had the same.
How many bears are killed each year legally by hunters? Why is there outrage that bears are euthanized because of behavior but it’s seems to be OK to kill them by hunting? What am I missing? A dead bear is a dead bear whatever the reason.
Put Flyers in and around town with an immediate DEC number, like 911, for people to call if they see any contact from bear. Put them in EVERY business, on their restaurant paper placemats, in the local papers, in storefront “windows.
More DEC officers locally to do “rounds” in a certain areas to catch ” feeding/Human interactions”.
Get THE WORD OUT!
Wait, so humans cornered a black bear female and her cubs who tried to defend themselves and the BEARS were the ones punished? It seems to me that the humans are the ones who do not know how to behave properly!
This needs to an International concern.
Tourists & Vacationers are doing this not the locals, they know.
Generation after generation….for 100’s of years.
It’s in the bears genetics now.
Relocate them?
NO.
They’ll just starve to death trying to find home, like Salmon. We need a solution that may take decades…like the idea of the DEC & other federal attempts to clear land as a sanctuary. Along with blueberries & acorns, how some garbage in & slowly withdraw human food.
WE have been moving into their territory- and killing the objectors.
There should be big road signs with pictorials and
.**** Make it a $10,000. fine! ****
That should pay for the signage.
As humans mostly we don’t need to hunt to live.
Let’s not cause another species extinction.