Tragic bear incident sparked community concerns about wildlife interactions
By Mike Lynch and Gwendolyn Craig
The Adirondack Park is home to more than half of the state’s 6,000 to 8,000 black bears, and sometimes their range overlaps with humans and leads to trouble.
Such was the case when the state Department of Environmental Conservation euthanized a mother bear and her two cubs in the summer of 2024 for exhibiting aggressiveness towards a crowd in the hamlet of Old Forge.
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Residents were upset, but the incident was just one of more than 50 black bear euthanizations in the Adirondacks in the last eight years, state records showed. Most of the DEC euthanizations took place after bears entered people’s homes.
The Explorer also reviewed violation and incident reports of illegal black bear feeding and found a mix of visitors and residents contributing to the bear behavior that led to aggressiveness toward humans.
The town of Webb, where Old Forge is located, considered its own local law with heftier fines than the state for the illegal feeding of black bears. Some residents also felt the DEC did not follow its own black bear protocols, though the department defended the euthanizations.
Other wildlife stories
The Old Forge bear story was just one of many wildlife stories that the Explorer covered in 2024.
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We updated readers on the latest moose studies and population estimates, examined how deer are moving into communities, and took a look at the new wolf exhibit at the New York State Museum in Albany.
Our reporting also continued to follow stories involving wildlife corridors. We analyzed the impact climate change is having on the movement of flora and fauna and wrote about advocacy efforts on behalf of the Split Rock Wildway and Algonquin to Adirondacks corridor.
In New York, the state Department of Environmental Conservation manages wildlife, and we followed its efforts to bolster the brook trout population and reduce the amount of lead hunters are putting into the environment.
We also provided an update on the status of mercury in fish, a topic that has been in the news for decades and will continue to be in the future.
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Birders also have their fair share of content to read, as columnist Joan Collins wrote her bimonthly dispatches, providing the latest info on the disappearing rusty blackbird but also providing upbeat news on the increasing merlin population.
Pollinators were also hot topics, as we detailed efforts in Indian Lake to convert a landfill to a garden habitat and wrote about a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect monarch butterflies.
Photo at top by Larry Master
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